Beauty and Melancholy
Landscape painting is often dismissed by the contemporary art vanguard. But Erin Elizabeth Ross makes no apologies.
Erin Elizabeth Ross, "Dreamscapes (but big) 6," 2018
acrylic and oil on canvas, 36" x 48" (courtesy of the artist)
Edmonton artist Erin Elizabeth Ross calls her latest works dreamscapes. They often portray vast swathes of land in the furthest reaches of southern Alberta, where her family ranches.
But the familiar tropes are pushed: the fields glow too intensely, the billowing storm clouds mound against a sky that’s overly dark. And then there’s the horizon, an uneasy junction between earth and sky that troubles both depth and verticality.
“I think the Prairies are this bizarre combination of beauty and melancholy and isolation and natural chaos,” says Ross, whose latest work is on view at Gibson Fine Art in Calgary starting Dec. 1. “I love trying to catch that tension and also that contrast.”
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Erin Elizabeth Ross, "Dreamscapes (but big) 3," 2018
acrylic and oil on canvas, 36" x 48" (courtesy of the artist)
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Erin Elizabeth Ross, "Dreamscapes (but big) 10," 2018
acrylic and oil on canvas, 36" x 48" (courtesy of the artist)
Canadian landscape painting carries a weighty history and is often dismissed by the contemporary art vanguard. But Ross makes no apologies. She feels a new confidence and says she has given herself permission to paint intuitively in this latest series.
“I work in a genre that I think is easily miscategorised,” she says. “People often think landscapes are purely decorative or, if you’re a landscape painter in Canada, you somehow have to harken back to the Group of Seven. I don’t feel like that. My interests in art are very broad and multifaceted.”
Her early love of watercolours is apparent in the way she handles paint, as is her formal sense of graphic presentation. But there is also a new freedom.
“I decided to challenge myself to loosen up and just let myself paint what I felt like painting, what I was moved by, and go back to the process of painting,” says Ross, who earned a Bachelor's degree in fine art in 2006 at the University of Alberta.
“They felt not just lighter in colour palette, but lighter, like I had unburdened myself. Being an artist is really self-conscious, especially being a young female landscape painter. It’s a deeply self-conscious place to be in as an artist.” ■
Christmas Group Show, featuring work by Erin Elizabeth Ross, is on view at Gibson Fine Art in Calgary from Dec. 1, 2018 to Jan. 5, 2019.
Gibson Fine Art Ltd
523 Cleveland Crescent SE, Calgary, Alberta T2G 4A9
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