VISUAL ARTS
B Y A L E X V. C I P O L L E
PAINTING THE POLITICAL
Oil painter Jerry Ross returns to his activist roots with mugs of Sanders,
Clinton, Trump and more presidential candidates
A
rtist Jerry Ross recently spent a lot of time with
Donald Trump’s face. As a Bernie Sanders
supporter, this was no easy feat.
“I got a lot of praise for that Trump painting
because it captured his arrogance,” Ross says.
“Also, his jaw, it’s very much like the jaw of Mussolini,”
he adds with a laugh, referencing the fascist Italian dictator
Benito Mussolini.
The Trump portrait is not some sort of artistic self-
flagellation, but rather one in a series of paintings Ross is
sending to Las Vegas for the show Dishing It Out 2016.
Ross’ sister, Las Vegas-based fine art photographer Diane
Bush, has curated a yearlong show featuring 2016
presidential candidate portraits, of both a fine art and
satirical bent, opening Jan 21. But before that, Ross will
display some of his prints here in Eugene.
So far, Ross has completed portraits of Bernie Sanders,
Hilary Clinton, Chris Christie and, of course, Trump.
Giclee prints of these originals, other new work (do not
miss the mammoth and metaphorical “Passeggiata con
Cinghiale”), along with some older pieces, will be on
display for First Friday ArtWalk Jan. 8 at In Eugene Real
Estate downtown (100 E. Broadway). The show, about 30
paintings in all, will hang for two months.
In addition, selected Dishing It Out works — including
Ross’ Trump — will be put on mugs and commemorative
plates, a winking throwback to those Ronald Regan and
Jimmy Carter dishes you can still find in thrift stores.
In conjunction with the Eugene show, Ross has
organized the Bernie Sanders ReadOut 6:30 to 9:30 pm
emerald
‘FEEL THE BERN’ BY JERRY ROSS
Thursday, Jan. 14, at Tsunami Books. The event, which
Ross compares to the “teach-outs” of the sixties, will call
on local artists, writers, performers and citizens to hash out
and define the “revolution” that Sanders is calling for. A
cappella group The Jewel Tones will perform a twist on the
1958 hit “Mr. Sandman” as “Mr. Sanders,” and performers
Izzy Whetstine and Matting Keating (also head of Lane
County for Bernie Sanders) will read.
In Eugene, Ross — an oil painter and longtime arts
educator and advocate — is not known for overtly political
art. He focuses mostly on landscapes, portraits and
figurative work with bold, loose brushwork drawing on
elements from Expressionism, Impressionism and Realism.
Ross has deemed this style American Verismo — a school
of painting that encourages working directly from life.
Yet politics has always been central to Ross.
“I was one of the Buffalo Nine during the Vietnam War,
which was like the Chicago Seven, only much more
obscure,” Ross says. The Buffalo, New York, native was
one of nine students arrested by a team of U.S. marshals,
FBI agents and local police in 1968 for protesting the war
and the draft. Ross was prosecuted in two federal trials,
both ending in hung juries. Shortly after, he relocated to
Oregon.
“I haven’t really been involved in electoral politics — it
was all protest politics,” Ross recalls. But he says he’s
starting to see the same energy around Bernie Sanders that
he saw in the kind of sixties activism that gave birth to the
Port Huron Statement — Tom Hayden’s 1962 manifesto
for the student activist movement Students for a Democratic
Society.
“Students don’t have a movement like that today, but
there’s the beginnings of it around Bernie Sanders,” Ross
says.
“I really see a role for the arts in this because it hasn’t
been clarified what Bernie Sanders means by the ‘political
revolution’ other than a list of issues he’s concerned with,”
Ross continues. “So I’m asking writers and artists to
define what that is here. It’s like a teach-out that will help
us define what we mean by all of this. It’s going to be an
art exhibit and performances both.” ■
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EUGENEWEEKLY.COM • DECEMBER 31, 2015
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