Animal, vegetable, or mineral? The answer’s all three in the wildly imagined, if mannered, new paintings of this mid-career American artist. Ross combines portrait, still-life, and landscape, with a nod to the composite sleight of hand of Giuseppe Arcimboldo, not to mention Mr. Potato Head: mountains stick out their tongues, land masses morph into bullfrogs, and earlike blobs occupy eye sockets. Terrestrial greens and celestial blues dominate Ross’s palette, punctuated by peaky yellows and raw-meat pink and reds (somewhere, Chaim Soutine and Philip Guston are smiling). For all their painterly know-how, there’s a refreshing idiosyncrasy to Ross’s sci-fi grotesqueries, in which strangers and strange lands become one. Through Dec. 6.(Nolan; Oct. 30-Dec. 6.)
Published in the print edition of the December 8, 2014, issue.
