The Eternal Space Between: Adam Ross

Hales Gallery is pleased to present LA based artist, Adam Ross in his second solo show with the gallery.

In The Eternal Space Between, Ross displays an ambitious new body of work where using his distinguished and meticulous use of pouring, merging and layering, he produces immaculately surfaced, flamboyant abstractions, created from the mixture of figurative influences from LA's hot urban Sprawl and European surrealist works.

In the past Ross' paintings however now, the approach has moved away from the overt uses of urban landscapes and back to the abstract realm. This progression from representational modes has led to Ross investigating the core of his practice and the relevance of painting as a medium.

Although Ross undoubtedly expresses a captivation with the abstract, representational traditions (in particular those found in European Abstraction and Surrealism) are not entirely removed from the work. Vivid brush strokes and bold coloured smears establish references to landscape and topographic imagery. It is easy to see how a constant flow of Sci-Fi pumped out by the LA film studios and the strange vernacular architecture of the region have also influenced Ross' creative vision. This relationship to California .place in which these works were produced in a fictional and almost cinematic realm.

It is these references and flirtations with the representational that take on the problems with

A return to form and a belief that paintings do certain things well.

Effect on Ross' painterly sensibilities.

Interplays between space and flatness

Disquieting, surrealistic abstractions

Ross creates exciting hybrids from these strange bedfellows.

Part of this change is a shift in the role of viewer orientation.

Determination to establish a discourse around then idea of what paintings do well.

Emerging persistent subjects such as colour, surface and the investigation into why painting is still a relevant practice. A return to form and the belief that paintings do certain things well.

Ross' work describes the image of when painterly and hints of the figurative concerns collide.

Another aspect of this change is a reference to overt figure group relationships while also simultaneously positioning another reference that cancels out these relationships. A type of simultaneity of space/non-space that can result in multiple disorientations.

this controlled system of mark making  formally frees Ross' paintings from any coherent narrative or form and ultimately questions  curious union of time, space and form.