From an Essay by Joanne Stuhr

Whether making a monotype or a painting, he creates two surfaces of equal size. One side is built up with dry pigment mixed in water, layer upon layer. This is left to dry completely. The other side is built up with layers of oil paint to the thickness of cake icing. Generally, both begin with the same base color but the artist does not necessarily remember what colors lie underneath the top-most surface. Gross then presses the two sides together, face to face, applying pressure only with his hands. After the two surfaces have dried together they are pulled apart, producing two related but distinct images. Though he exerts control of the color and subtly manipulates the form, the final work is the unpredictable result of the random pull. Unlike Ernst, he does not work the image or images afterward. This, he says, “would be antithetical to the procedure, akin to messing with nature.”

Pulling the paintings apart is an aggressive action. Great physicality is required. The formerly independent surfaces have merged into one through the course of drying and must literally be wrenched apart. Gross says of the technique, “there is a violent aspect to the peeling apart—it is the birthing process of the piece and is part of the nature of the work.” Destruction of one, gives rise to another—the synergetic coming together of the two creates something related, yet wholly new. They are, “fresh and new but at same time layered and reminiscent of both the former images.” The essential randomness of his images reflected in the randomness of their titles, which are selected blindly from the New York City phone book.

The resultant works are shown both singly or as pair, as dictated by the images themselves. Sometimes there is dynamism that insists that both be exhibited. At other times, one does not enhance the other so, like a stillborn twin, it must be cast out. Whether one or both are retained, Gross thinks of the images as twins and, like twins, the viewer is compelled to consider the subtle similarities and differences. As with human identical twins, the disparities, distinctions and diversions become even more pronounced, more prominent, within the framework of similarity. And if shown alone, the specter of the absent member of the pair, like a phantom limb, is eerily present.