REGAL UNIFORMITY

There's nothing more exhilarating than when a young painter takes a huge risk and comes out on top.

Two years ago, Todd Ros shelved the gestural expressionism of his previous work and introduced his first series of minimalist-style paintings. Because of their conceptual rigor and aesthetic sobriety - each painting was composed solely of vertical bands of color - there was never any doubt as to the paintings' limited audience. Yet, because of Ros' flawless execution, the exhibit became something of an insider's darling and beckoned the presence of a still-maturing but formidable talent.

This month, Ros unveils his second exhibit of minimalist-style paintings at the Augen Gallery. And again, the artist has exceeded expectations. Echoing the pristine, rational painting perfected by Brice Marden, Agnes Martin and other Minimalists of the 60's and 70's, Ros has presented himself as something of a 90's anomaly. As Identity Art and Body Art have become all the rage for younger, emerging artists, the 37-year old Ros seems content with his latter-day brand of minimalism. Needles to say, traveling back in time has rarely been so refreshingly worthwhile.

In the new exhibit, Ros has employed bolder color schemes than before, saturating the paintings vertical stripes with a spectrum of high-voltage color-fields: gold, cardinal, orange, red and ocean. In his last exhibit, Ros varied the number of stripes in each painting: this time, there are exactly seven in each, giving the group of seventeen paintings a glorious uniformity and regal absoluteness. At their heightened best, the paintings stand like stationary blocks of mental space, purged of all knowledge and social implications.

Ros began painting at age 29. To say he has come a long way in eight short years would be to state the obvious, though it emphasizes a fact that should not be readily forgotten: the artist has just begun to tap his creative potential. In receding so deeply within himself for this exhibit, Ros, at a relatively early moment of his career, has landed at something like the doorstep of his imagination - and glimpsed a view of a more than promising future.

D. K. Row, The Oregonian, May 15, 1998, pg. 62