Rainer Gross presents Solo Art Exhibition ‘Double Take’ at East End Arts
On View
September 24 - November 5, 2022
Exhibition Locations & Hours
EEA Main Gallery [133 E. Main St., Riverhead, NY 11901] &
11 West Gallery [11 W. Main St., Peconic Crossing, Riverhead, NY 11901]
Gallery hours are 12 p.m. - 5 p.m. on Thursdays, 2 p.m. - 7 p.m. on Fridays, 12 p.m. - 5 p.m. on Saturdays, and 11 a.m. - 3 p.m. on Sundays. The galleries are free and open to the public. Private tours can be arranged by emailing gallery@eastendarts.org.
Opening Reception
Saturday, September 24, 2022 from 4-7 p.m.
EEA Main Gallery, 133 E. Main St., Riverhead, with tours to sister gallery.
Riverhead, NY – East End Arts & Humanities Council, Inc. (EEA) is pleased to present a solo exhibition of North Fork based, German-American artist Rainer Gross across its two Main St. galleries this fall. Rainer Gross: Double Take features new paintings from the artist’s continuing Twins series, Pandemic Fragments, and Double Takes photo-based artworks on paper. The exhibition opens with an artist reception on Saturday, September 24, 2022 at 4:00 p.m. and runs through November 5, 2022.
Rainer Gross creates vivid abstract paintings in which composition, hue, and surface texture are mirrored across side-by-side canvases. The left and right images share nearly identical flowing patches of acidic color or rich earth tones with heavy flakes of cracked impasto, yet there are differences in both the intensity and positioning of elements. These inexact duplications result from the artist's self-devised painting technique. Starting with two canvases of equal size, Gross coats the first canvas with multiple layers of water-based pigment. After applying a thick layer of oil paint to the second canvas, he presses both together, then peels them apart to reveal similar imprints on each but with unpredictable areas of paint adhesion.
Gross, who is interested in the Fluxus movement and its use of chance, embraces random occurrences in the creation of his Twins series. In addition to the intrinsically unknowable outcome of his contact painting technique, Gross assigns titles for his diptychs by arbitrarily selecting names from the phone book. The paired paintings become a conceptual endeavor as the artist relinquishes full control of his process.
Gross joined EEA in 2021. “I want to show my current work in the area I live in and be part of a community,” he states about exhibiting in the council’s galleries, and all works were created in his Cutchogue studio. Gallery visitors are treated to many never-before seen pieces in Double Take, including a large piece made specifically for the EEA space.
About Rainer Gross
Rainer Gross was born in Köln, Germany in 1951. He was based in New York City since 1973 before moving to the North Fork of Long Island in 2017.
Gross has had two solo gallery exhibitions this year, with Margaret Thatcher Projects in New York City and Galerie Richard in Paris. In 2012, the Ludwigmuseum (Koblenz, Germany) held a four-decade survey of his paintings. Other solo exhibits include the Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts (Lausanne, Switzerland) 1984, Krannert Art Museum/Kinkead Pavilion (Champaign, Illinois) 1998, Kunsthalle Emden (Emden, Germany)1989. Gross’ paintings are housed in public and private collections, including the AT&T Corporate Art Collection, the Cohen Family Collection, the Hirschhorn Collection, the UBS Union Bank of Switzerland, Museum Pfalzgalerie Kaiserlautern (Germany), Stadtmuseum Cologne (Germany) the Lowe Art Museum, among others. His work has been reviewed in the U.S. by the New York Times, Art in America, ArtNews, The Brooklyn Rail, The Boston Globe, Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
About East End Arts
East End Arts & Humanities Council is a 501[c][3] nonprofit organization located in Riverhead, NY whose mission is to Unlock Creativity, Build Community. Since its inception in 1972,