Jack Ross

Artist Statement

 

     Observational painting is a core component of my practice as an artist. I believe that there is something significant to be gained by working directly from life – looking and engaging with your surroundings, trusting your perception, and describing your experiences through the language of paint. 

          Portraiture is a subject that I keep returning to. I’ve always been interested in people – their personalities, histories, relationships, work, and lives. Isolation due to the pandemic has forced us all to reconsider the value of our time spent with others. When I started this project I was thinking about the conversations I’ve had regularly with friends, co-workers, and old classmates. There were a lot of overlapping challenges that we all had in common. Many of my friends work in retail and customer service positions as I have for the past 10 years. Underemployed, struggling to find affordable housing, dealing with the dehumanizing aspects of work, while trying to find a sense of purpose in increasingly directionless environment. Identity is often overwritten or challenged by station, but sometimes this becomes a necessary survival tactic. For myself and my friends who identify as queer, this additional element complicates our experiences of work, life, and hope for the future.

          This series of portraits was painted from life in collaboration with close friends who modelled for me in person. I wanted to challenge a history of problematic artist-model relationships by starting with the question “What right do I have as an artist to ask the folks modelling for me for content, narrative, connection, likeness – anything really?” I am attempting to create a more egalitarian relationship with my model-collaborators through openness and communication. My process involves working with my models to come up with a concept for each painting. Conversations happen ahead of time, picking a subject we both have some experience with and interest in addressing. In some cases we agree to let the painting come about more organically and work together to to pull something out of the pose during the painting process.

         For me the narratives in these paintings are important - normal working class people, students, and queer friends, struggling with everyday problems. I wanted to elevate these struggles by bringing my friends narratives to large scale portraiture, a format traditionally reserved for those in positions of power. I see painting as simply another option for giving idea form. I want to focus on understanding what it means to be painting portraits from life in the context of today’s world.