Dissolution is a series of self-portraits—Ross Stockwell reconciles the past and what it means to be alive. Most have an opportunity to reflect and prepare as the final years of conscious life approach. Stockwell revisits hazy and fluid memories, people, and places—utilizing found objects, railway lands, power lines and urban structures as a point of contrast. Stockwell infuses familiar scenes with a disorienting strangeness. Through textured overlays, the artist explores appreciation, sentimentality and the bitter-sweet melancholy associated with regret, longing, aloneness and saying ‘goodbye.’ In doing so, he metaphorically attempts to reconnect and pay homage to all that is part of him. Inescapably, this is a process of consolidating memories, acknowledging loss and remaining connected to what we know—as we transition from a once solid sense of identity to something less certain (or nothing at all). Memento Mori.
Opening reception to take place January 6, 2023, 6:00 - 8:00 PM.
Ross Stockwell is an emerging artist based in Toronto, Ontario. He notices beauty, whimsy and intrigue in unlikely places, capturing still moments borne of a mindful presence. His work is eclectic (landscape/urban, figure, and portraiture), unified by illuminating oddities and the play of patterns and geometric forms. His emerging projects emphasize narrative to connect, consolidate and express subjective experience. He explores states of being, felt-sense moods and emotions in an inanimate context. He merges classical references with a contemporary inquiry to immerse with universal questions and concerns about life, decay and what falls between the two.