Rainer Gross’s third solo
exhibition for Marcia Wood Gallery, “New Contact Paintings
– Singles and Twins,” features new works in the ongoing
series "Contact Paintings" 1998-2006, last seen in a
traveling solo exhibition in Germany, 2003-2005, originating at
the Leopold Hoesch Museum in Dueren. A catalog titled "Doppelgaenger"
with an essay by David Moos was published for the show and is
available at the gallery.
Gross’s working process is quite unique. He
begins by applying several layers of water based pure pigments to
one canvas. A second canvas is then covered with oil paint and placed
face to face on top of the first. He then carefully presses them
together applying pressure only with his hands before separating
them, revealing the different broken up layers of pigment fused
with the wetness of the oil paint. Calculated, yet unpredictable,
a painting in two parts is born.
The separation of the two canvases produces a range
of weathered-looking textures, suggestive of fossilized organic
matter frozen in time. These paintings succeed in engaging the viewer
on an immediate visceral, conceptual and emotional level. Gross
creates the rare bridge between beauty and concept, randomness and
control, feeling and reason. Through his innovative technique, Gross
distills painting to its bare essentials. He creates a new language
for painting at the beginning of the 21st century.
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