Jerry Ross Studios
I have a strong interest in the "poetica del vero" schools of painting, mostly derived from Italian influences.
This can be translated as "the poetry of life or truth" and is associated with working directly from nature
as in plein air painting, namely an appreciation of the oil sketch and alla prima (a direct attack)
mode of painting which I apply not only to landscape but also to portraiture and figurative work.
Like the I Macchiaioli artists of Tuscany, I seek a metaphysical component in my painting.
The I Macchiaioli were a group of artists who met at the Cafe Michelangelo in Florence, Italy around 1860.
They were interested in a whole range of new subject matter exalting real life: domestic scenes, familiar settings
and everyday life, the local countryside, rural and urban scenes, and the Italian war for Italian independence
and unification (the Risorgimento). Nearly a century and a half later, like the Italians of that period, I am concerned with "social verismo", namely social issues. I also have a strong interest in classical painting and often do studies after the great masters such as Raphael and Peter Paul Rubens. In these old master studies I use the more modern alla prima approach as well as the principles of abstraction.