Artist SPOTLIGHT: Charles Emery Ross sees his work as one discovery after another




“Peak Season” 47

“Peak Season” 47″x47″ mixed media

Equally talented in creating landscapes and non-objective abstracts, Charles Emery Ross enjoys making leaps to see where he goes. His land­scapes were at one time far more literal until he segued into, as he says, “the Kahn thing” that was more about color and big skies. “You kind of get to play God when you’re painting skies,” said Ross.

Wolf Kahn, known for his color field landscape paintings, has been a major influence for Ross. “Kahn’s sense of color was just extraordinary,” said Ross. “I tried to bring my own twist to it. I was charmed by color all my life.”

A graduate of the Central Academy of Commercial Art in Cincinnati, Ross started out in advertising as a graphic artist, then moved into producing TV commercials. “I always kept my finger in art and was a Sunday painter,” he explained, but later as a partner in an ad agency, he found he didn’t enjoy the administrative part of the business and needed more of a creative outlet so he started painting more seriously.

Charles Emery Ross in his Cincinnati studio.

Charles Emery Ross in his Cincinnati studio.

Describing his approach to art, Ross explained, “Probably one of the hardest things to do is kick yourself out of those grooves where you’re safe and try and discover something that surprises you and really works. It’s about color, form, composition, movement and excitement.”

When starting with his abstracts, he recalled DeKooning’s method of writing either a name on a blank canvas or drawing a woman’s mouth just to break the ice. “With an abstract you can start with anything you feel like start­ing with whether it be splashes of color or shapes,” said Ross, “Then you start to build. You never know where you’re going to be with the next strokes, the next movements. If you’re really flying, you don’t know where you’re going to wind up. Each one is a kind of adventure.”

Working the art show circuit, Long Island in the summer, Florida in the winter, and spots in between, he eventually developed a network of galler­ies. Locally he is represented by Sheldon Fine Art in Naples.

While some of his abstracts, influenced by the bold gestural painting of Franz Kline, are black and white and shades of gray, he said, “I kind of get the feeling that color is coming back and maybe it’s due to world conditions. Maybe we need a touch of bright,” he said.

To see more of his work visit sheldonfineart.com/charles-emery-ross.