“the kid” stays in the picture painter Thom Ross embraces Western archetypes by B a r ba ra Ty ne r
Thom Ross isn’T shy about his heroes. in fact, the chaps-wearing, mile-a-minute taleteller doesn’t seem shy about much of anything. Like his paintings, Ross is colorful and brash and no stranger to controversy, but don’t let him fool you: There’s more to his bravado—and to his works—than meets the eye. he’s a good painter, a serious thinker, and is after noble themes, such as transcendence, redemption, and betrayal. in Ross’s view, Billy the Kid, Butch Cassidy, and the like are more than criminals: they’re archetypes—cultural characters repeating and resonating throughout history. Characters that pack serious mythological punch. Ross probes history’s dark side for iconic villains with huge stories, creating stylized, highdrama and high-contrast portraits accessorized with specific, historic accoutrements. space is flattened and figures are abstracted in bold strokes against monochromatic backgrounds. still, these bad boys carry a sense of humor via Ross’s playful color use. Primary and primal, color is his way of redefining his miscreants against a black-and-white history of “wanted” posters and microfiched police blotters. This is a testosterone-fueled world of gun-fighters, warriors, boxers, and thieves. in addition to works on canvas, Ross creates freestanding, oversized, painted wood cutouts, animated by vibrant color and deft handling of scale. installed in the landscape, these pieces become grand theater. Like a child arranging toy soldiers in intricate battle positions, Ross poses his cutouts to recreate iconic moments in history, his way.
he hasn’t always been so rough and tumble. Growing up in sausalito, California, where houseboats outnumber chuck wagons, Ross was raised on a diet of 1950s TV Westerns. By the time of the Vietnam War, his screen heroes were recast as ignoble, passé. As a young painter at Chico state University, Ross resurrected them as subjects, welcoming debate. This has been his oeuvre ever since, redefining our notions of history, and lionizing—if not canonizing—the sometimes controversial figures of Western history. Ross has been in santa Fe for about a year and a half, and his paintings retain the pale skies of rainy seattle, his home for 19 years. he hasn’t yet worked out the City Different’s impossibly blue sky—and the havoc it might create on his palette. he moved here for the sunsets, the endless horizon, and for his muse, Billy the Kid, whose archetype, according to Ross, is the Greek god Pan, Peter Pan, the young Goat—naughty and inexhaustible youth. “The Kid” may have met his match. Thom Ross is represented in Santa Fe by Due West Gallery, 217 W San Francisco, duewestgallery.com.
Above: Thom Ross, The Harwood House, 48 x 72", oil on canvas. Below: Thom Ross, What Billy Allen Saw, acrylic on canvas, 21 x 58"
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