Cheryl Gross: BoxingBabes & Cowgirls

Opening reception: March 15, 5 – 8 p.m. Artist Talk: March 16, 1 – 2 p.m. The exhibition, BoxingBabes & Cowgirls, showcases Gross’ most recent body of work which celebrates both real and fictitious cowgirls and women boxers as heroines. Having grown up with her father, she often watched Westerns and sport programs on television. It was only natural for Gross to pretend play as a cowboy armed with toy guns and lassos. The games lost their color as Gross realized that the worlds of Westerns and sports largely excluded women as the main players or cast them as damsels in distress. By embracing freedom, breaking boundaries, and eschewing outdated forms of gender identity, Gross created these series out of her fantasy, memory, and research of historical and contemporary women in boxing, sharpshooting, and rodeo performance. Gross’ colorful paintings honor these lesser-known trailblazers in American history with a unique style which combines kinetic splatters and illustrative figuration. Created from accidental coffee stains, the vividly colored and delineated splatters serve as halos or accents behind these dynamic subjects. Although the genre of illustration has often been separated from that of fine art, Gross boldly transgresses these boundaries to nullify the conventional notions of art altogether. Brooklyn native Cheryl Gross is an illustrator, painter, writer and motion graphic artist living and working in the New York/New Jersey area. She is a professor at Pratt Institute. Her work has appeared in numerous films, TV shows, publications, and graces the walls of many corporate and museum collections including: Zebra Poetry Film Festival, Berlin, New York Times, Riverside Museum, Riverside, Ca., The Museum of The City of New York, Mississippi Museum of Art, Laforet Harajuku Museum, Tokyo, Japan, Artist-In-Residency, Kunstlerhaus, Saarbruken, Germany. Finalist Elizabeth Hulings Foundation, 2014, Artist-In-Residency Program, Dilsberg, Germany, 2015, four-time recipient Eileen Kaminsky Family Foundation Residency, Jersey City, 2018-2021, long time contributor: Broadsided Press, Art Fair 14c, Jersey City, NJ, 2021-22. Images: Cheryl Gross, Nellie Brown, 2021, mixed media: archival ballpoint, graphite, India ink, color pencil, acrylic, gouache and watercolor on paper. Cheryl Gross, BoxingBabe 28, 2022, mixed media: archival ballpoint, graphite, India ink, color pencil, acrylic, gouache, and watercolor on paper.

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