“I create the chaos, and then I resolve it.”
Michael Gross, painter and printmaker, offers expressive and emotion-filled works using a kaleidoscope of color. Gross creates art as “a means of grappling with the impulses and struggles that make up the way I see my place in the world.” Through his visual lexicon, which is devoid of ideological reference, Gross seeks to create order from chaos. His lyrical compositions of concatenated lines, textured surfaces and rich hues, evoke Abstract Expressionism and pay homage to artists who inspire his work: Willem de Kooning, Richard Diebenkorn and Jackson Pollock.
Statement
I have been painting and drawing for most of my life and, in recent years making prints. These creative efforts are a means of grappling with the impulses and struggles that make up the way I see my place in the world. In a work of art I am pleased with, I have succeeded in wresting a sense of order from the chaos of an incomplete and unbalanced piece. I create the chaos and then I resolve it.
Although much of my work is non-objective, in the sense that it is not representational, I also consider myself, in some way, to be a landscape artist. I have been inspired by what I see around me – a small bridge, my garden, a view – and have been moved to put onto canvas or paper a spontaneous expression of that experience in an abstract way.
For a number of years, I have been making intensely colorful, frenetic studies of light and movement that, at first, appear to be monochromatic: red, blue, yellow, brown, gray, white, or black. Up close, however, these paintings are teeming with layers of thrown, dripped, and smeared paint. Even the medium varies: I use acrylic, as well as oil. I also apply these methods to my works on paper.
Recently, I have moved away from the appearance of the monochromatic in the paintings and other work—exposing all of the color, shapes and lines (as well as collage) in the finished piece.
I work rapidly, pacing the studio to look at the painting up close, and then from a distance. I rotate the canvas, so I can see where there is imbalance. I take if off the wall and work on the floor, flinging paint to create lines and movement.
The energy I call up to work in this way is both physical and spiritual. I am wrestling with divergent forces: intensity vs. detachment, emotion vs. reason, light vs. darkness, and color vs. black. Every work is an attempt to capture a moment of equilibrium, a kind of elegant balance in time and space that is recorded permanently in the painting, drawing or print. I settle for a while, and then I seem to need to do it again.
My hope is that viewers will be drawn in, will want to look at the work for a minute or two because in this image I made gives them a vision of the incredible power, ambiguity, intricacy, and beauty of our lives.
Michael Gross was born in 1944 and grew up in Chicago.