Among the many artistic influences Barry Grose cites, Georgia O’Keeffe and Mark Rothko are the ones who will most likely resonate with a viewer who experiences his subtle, seductive images. His paintings share with O’Keeffe’s work a focus on the multi-layered appeal of flowers — from the simply aesthetic to the nearly sexual. His exceptionally striking palette appears to be strongly influenced by the kind of emotional power that color takes on in Rothko’s paintings. Yet Grose’s images move away from those starting points to form a body of work that is highly distinctive. Flowers appear against dark, mysterious backgrounds, and each image appears to be flooded with colored light, making it hard for the viewer to tell whether the flowers themselves are blue or orange, or if it’s the environment they are in that makes them appear that way.
There is a unique otherworldly glow to Grose’s paintings, one that successfully creates the “meditative zone” for which the artist aims.