Common Source, a series of works by Zach Gross created between 2021 and 2023, examines ideas around originality, intellectual property, and authorship. Gross explores these subjects by entering into a dialogue with the work of Andy Warhol. Warhol’s photographic contact sheets are the source material from which the forms in the images are derived. Warhol used the camera to document his subjects in a traditionally figurative manner–Gross has re-photographed the contact sheets out of focus and with a camera sensor highly sensitive to light. He then redistributes the tonal values of the images, revealing the digital foundation within them and abstracting the original subject matter. The predominant subjects of the images become light and form, illuminating photography's ability to expand our comprehension of scale in time and space.
The images in this body of work are the results of Gross’ experimentations with the boundaries of photography and the camera itself. They feature archetypal forms that are balanced between abstraction and clear depiction. Through representing the familiar as foreign, the work asks the viewer to question what they are seeing and consider how the history of visual communication has shaped the way we see reality.
