Rosamond Gross

Rosamond Gross (United States, born 1978), Independence Day, 2020, Giclée print, 15 x 10 inches, Courtesy of the artist 

Rosamond Gross is an artist, art educator, and mother who lives and works in Southern Maine. Working primarily in photography, she often embraces the chaos of everyday life, grabs her camera, and photographs excerpts of it.

Like many families in 2020, Gross’ family life shifted when the pandemic hit Maine. She and her spouse are public school teachers whose roles shifted due to COVID-19 protocols.

Her children’s school structure also shifted when her family of four found themselves at home on Monday, March 16, 2020. They did not return to normal routines or school until September. During these six months together, Gross felt the ordinary and extraordinary weave together: a birthday celebration, the Fourth of July, a Black Lives Matter protest and march organized by students at South Portland High School, among others. Gross captures these liminal spaces in the photograph Independence Day that portrays the hope and innocence of childhood amidst a pandemic.   

The artist shared: 

Photographing my family during this time has felt like the most accessible means to document and collect fleeting, unprocessed moments. In my gut, I feel uneasy, unsure, unstable. My children still build paper boats and run through the yard with sparklers. I feel that our small family unit is living our day-to-day lives amidst great change, but we won’t be able to recognize the impact yet. We are still in the thick of it. I hope to reflect back on my collection of images at some point and be able to make sense of the coexistence of these extraordinary ​and​ ordinary times. 

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“Rosamond Gross’ photograph captures a moment of pure joy and wonder that contrasts our uncertain and turbulent times. While the viewer is transformed into an imaginary world of light and atmosphere, it is also a somber reminder of the precarity of life in the current moment.”

- Séan Alonzo Harris, Untitled juror 

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Graeme Kennedyuntitled artists