Prison of the Mind

The densely packed paintings found in Alex Gross’ latest monograph Prison of the Mind extend the ideas he’d developed in the prior decade while turning the pop culture references up to eleven. Fresh themes and settings find his flawless oil paintings skating to the outer limits of the absurd. Finely rendered Darth Skater at the skate park and Cersei and Jaime Lannister, the villains from “Game of Thrones,” sharing Tic-Tacs simultaneously amaze and amuse. Mr. Gross has been kept busy creating his stream-of-consciousness fine oil paintings for the past decade, but also continues to create his modified “cabinet card” paintings. An entire new body of work created on these archival photographs is also featured in Prison of the Mind. A revealing interview with writer and curator John Seed lets the reader into the inner-workings of this fascinating artist’s mind.