Elizabeth Leach Gallery is thrilled to present Field | Source | Deflector, a collection of new paintings by Michelle Ross. Over the last year and a half, the body of work has slowly taken form, evolving and responding to an abundance of literary, visual, and natural references. The natural world anchors the work, particularly sites where stillness allows time to accumulate: old cisterns, aquifers, bogs, springs, and wells. These are places of dormancy and emergence, dark, dense, and fecund, where stagnancy breeds abundant life and where cycles of production, decay, and reproduction govern. Ross uses painting as a vehicle for translating the environment she inhabits, embracing a visual medium to channel stimuli where language fails to suffice. Observation does not simply inspire the work but rather becomes it, as Ross patiently manipulates the flowing, pooling, and settling of the material surface.
Ross utilizes a smaller scale for the majority of the works in the exhibition. With dimensions closer to a book or a mirror, the paintings demand intimate engagement from viewers, who must draw near and co-occupy their physical fields. In this proximity, Ross explores her ongoing interest in the haptic relationships we share with static objects.
