Artist, amateur bio-engineer and member of the San Francisco mycological society, Mr. Ross uses living organisms as the inspiration and means by which he makes his work.
Through the design and creation of highly controlled environments, Mr. Ross manipulates, nurtures and transforms a variety of living species into sculpture. Phillip has worked collaboratively with a number of institutions. In 2001, The Exploratorium in San Francisco invited him to be an artist in residence for their Life Science Department. While there, he designed and constructed a hydroponic garden and fountain for their Traits Of Life exhibit.
He has also worked with the Johnson Oyster farm in Tomales Bay, just north of San Francisco, where he devised a method of growing a colony of oysters onto an armature, a three-year process that produced a twenty-foot long architectural structure composed of a mass of fused oyster shells.
Mr. Ross’s work lies at the disparate intersection of homegrown technologies, folk art, materials science, and D.I.Y. cultivation techniques. The show includes a series of Reishi mushrooms grown into highly artificed forms, the aforementioned sculpture grown out of oysters, and a self-contained survival capsule for one living plant. These sculptures are at once highly crafted and naturally formed, skillfully manipulated and sloppily organic.
Mr Ross will give a talk on his work at the gallery the following Sunday, April 11th at 3pm.
Organized will remain on view until May 9th.
