Alexander Ross
Alford, MA
painting, drawing
Untitled, 2002, oil on canvas, 84” x 65”, Collection of Patrick Hayne and Barrie Schwartz
Alexander Ross paints organic, lichen-inspired forms in bright greens often against a seemingly pixilated, sky blue background. His hyper-realistic images play between natural and artificial, as does his process that involves clay models, digital scans, and, finally, detailed painting.
"I generate the images in my paintings by first making detailed plasticine models. I sculpt the clay to suggest things such as plants, figures, cells, faces or landscapes, but never too explicitly. This allows me to touch upon multiple meanings while keeping things essentially abstract. After photographs of the models are taken, I design mock-ups by cropping and editing the photos in various ways. The oil paintings are interpretations of these photo mock-ups.
My drawings are spontaneously arrived at, with a loose play among various motifs; stalks, stumps, tendrils, roots, cells, and webs, all in various states of growth and decay.
Many cultural signals are brought to bear on my thinking. Trends in biotechnology, materials science and artificial life are some of the influences behind the imagery. In addition I would cite microbiology, geology, and topography as central underlying interests." —Alexander Ross
