Rainer Gross: Double Take
On view through November 5, 2022
East End Arts
Riverhead, New York
www.eastendarts.org
Rainer Gross creates vivid abstract paintings in which composition, hue, and surface texture are mirrored across side-by-side canvases. The left and right images share nearly identical flowing patches of acidic color or rich earth tones with heavy flakes of cracked impasto, yet there are differences in both the intensity and positioning of elements. These inexact duplications result from the artist’s self-devised painting technique. Starting with two canvases of equal size, Gross coats the first canvas with multiple layers of water-based pigment. After applying a thick layer of oil paint to the second canvas, he presses both together, then peels them apart to reveal similar imprints on each but with unpredictable areas of paint adhesion.
Gross, who is interested in the Fluxus movement and its use of chance, embraces random occurrences in the creation of his Twins series. In addition to the intrinsically unknowable outcome of his contact painting technique, Gross assigns titles for his diptychs by arbitrarily selecting names from the phone book. The paired paintings become a conceptual endeavor as the artist relinquishes full control of his process.
[Image: Rainer Gross, Twins series. Courtesy the artist]
