4me4you recently had the pleasure of visiting Pontone Gallery, where the exhibition "PARADISE" by artist Madeleine Gross was on display.
MY PROCESS
Madeleine Gross creates her singular and distinctive artworks by painting over her original photographs.
She overlays idyllic images of sunset Ontario lakes and gleaming Miami beaches with expressively painted naked figures and gestural brushstrokes.
This aesthetic contrast between the smooth, machine-made surface of the photographic background and the smears, clots, and streaks of freely applied paint is immediately striking.
Gross’s dramatic interventions prompt viewers to inquire into the personal significance of these pieces. One of Gross’s signature motifs is a nude couple embracing against various picturesque sunsets, compositions that nod to cinematic melodrama.
However, the artist subverts this cliché through vigorous and raw painterly applications, adding emotional depth and friction to the scenes. These landscapes are of personal significance to Gross, and she seeks to imbue them with an intensity of feeling.
This is achieved through the addition of visceral, richly textured paint, whose urgency and directness claim ownership of the scene. Gross frequently references an idealised world of romance, sun-worship, and playful recreation.
Despite this, her pictures suggest an intense subtext, a powerful thread of abstracted emotion that ties everything together.
Tension is implied through the aesthetic contrast between the media, with her intuitive strokes and rich colours serving as a gloss or commentary, adding an additional layer of emotional association.