Sally Ross

Sally Ross’ paintings reveal their components and how they came together, the thinking and handwork involved, yet retaining an enigmatic quality, somehow elusive and direct. The very foundation of Ross’s work is within the reality of where her art comes into being: the studio, and in particular the studio floor, on which her work is initially composed like a map unfolding in various directions, fitted together from any number of pieces and sewn into place, a sort of cubist quilting. The artist stands above the image-composition, which we may see as an aerial view of a landscape, and she begins to stitch the pieces together. There is a three-dimensionality, not only with the sculptural protrusions in some of the paintings, but with what appear as blocks of a faceted structure. Certain materials—green and black checked flannel pieces from one of her own jackets, for example—that Ross brings into the canvas, are like the missing parts of a puzzle; actual rather than painted, they suggest trompe-l’oeil in reverse.