ROBIN ROSS, AN ARTIST STATEMENT
i begin to look anew.
i paint a vision of what i think might be the sun.
reality fails me: i do not know if i capture this in my dream-state,
because when i look at the sun i am blinded by white light shining
and when i breathe the sun i am full of such brilliance that i cannot imagine anything physical.
i am barren, all is meaningless.
when i know that i cannot in any human way reproduce this, i no longer try.
i try only to look for the sun in another way. and make another painting holding the grace i have seen.
i am losing all sense of rules and further rules of color and of composition and maybe even of meaning... i get lost making them.
i paint bodies as mist, light, ghosts and winged beings, as wind. I try to relay what grounds us to stay earthbound – discovering how we as humans exist on terrain that is a meld of animal, plant and cosmic matter. Having encountered near death experiences and thus having seen a different side of life has given me an unusual perspective of reality. I address themes of existence and persistence by exposing the light and energy that I recognize. When I paint specific people’s spirit portrait I reference from photos and remembered conversations. Recognizable figures appear and disappear.
The work is heavily layered and glazed, with words and colors scratched into the paint creating both physical depth and deep radiance. I aspire to have the resulting glow translate each painting into the dreamtime that allows for transcendence conceptually and spiritually.
i paint a vision of what i think might be the sun.
reality fails me: i do not know if i capture this in my dream-state,
because when i look at the sun i am blinded by white light shining
and when i breathe the sun i am full of such brilliance that i cannot imagine anything physical.
i am barren, all is meaningless.
when i know that i cannot in any human way reproduce this, i no longer try.
i try only to look for the sun in another way. and make another painting holding the grace i have seen.
i am losing all sense of rules and further rules of color and of composition and maybe even of meaning... i get lost making them.
i paint bodies as mist, light, ghosts and winged beings, as wind. I try to relay what grounds us to stay earthbound – discovering how we as humans exist on terrain that is a meld of animal, plant and cosmic matter. Having encountered near death experiences and thus having seen a different side of life has given me an unusual perspective of reality. I address themes of existence and persistence by exposing the light and energy that I recognize. When I paint specific people’s spirit portrait I reference from photos and remembered conversations. Recognizable figures appear and disappear.
The work is heavily layered and glazed, with words and colors scratched into the paint creating both physical depth and deep radiance. I aspire to have the resulting glow translate each painting into the dreamtime that allows for transcendence conceptually and spiritually.