Recipient Information
Location
Johnson City, Tennessee
Medium
Multidisciplinary
Year of Award
2019
Grant or Fellowship
Southern Prize and State Fellowships
Grant Amount
$5,000
Artist Biography
Johnson City, Tenn., artist Andrew Scott Ross (b. 1980, Queens, N.Y.) has exhibited in some dozen states and five countries. His solo exhibitions include those at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wis.; New York’s Guggenheim Museum: Peter Lewis Theater; and Atlanta’s Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia. Other institutions that have shown his work include the Museum of Art and Design, SmackMellon, Cue Art Foundation and a half dozen galleries in New York City; the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center; the Asheville Museum of Art and Greensboro’s Weatherspoon Art Museum, both in North Carolina; the Hunter Museum of Contemporary Art in Chattanooga and the Knoxville Museum of Art, both in Tennessee; the University of Kansas’ Spencer Museum of Art; Le Commun BAC in Geneva, Switzerland; Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv; the Gallery of the International Pavilion in Ulsan, South Korea; and TPTP Space in Paris, France. Ross’ work is in the permanent collections of MOCA GA, MAD New York, the Spencer Museum and the Deutsche Bank. He received a BFA from the Atlanta College of Art, an MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and studied at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.
Artist Statement
I am interested in finding alternative methods of interpreting, recording, and visualizing history. Inspired by institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian, and Wikipedia, which attempt to evenly reflect all of cultural production, I investigate the logic of the museum and how it affects our perceptions of cultures and their histories. I do so by creating a personal museum comprised of objects that attempt to isolate the common socio- and psycho-cultural constructions often embedded within historical display. By using the language of contemporary art to create a critical discourse and distance, the museum reconsiders these cultural constructions through site-specific installations, images, and objects.
The installations in particular mix sculpture and drawing – they play with flatness and depth and are never considered finished works. Many pieces weave references from prehistory or classical antiquity through modern, contemporary and personal imagery. I combine this method with concepts found in anthropology and linguistics such as universalism, exoticism, and cultural appropriation, visualizing debates that have an impact on inquiry in these disciplines.
Ruins My Image (detail) (installed at the Hunter Museum of American Art)
Year: 2018
Medium: Mixed Media on Paper
Size (h x w x d): 20' x 24'
"Ruins My Image" is an expanding series of drawings that originated from a single reproduction of prehistoric San rock art from the Matopo Hills of Zimbabwe. This small 3000-year-old yellow ochre painting that depicted an injured human became the subject of my inspiration for approximately 200 drawings. These drawings explore the challenges and complexity found in evaluating an example of early representation. My final installation acts as a map of citations, distortions, and fantasies that emerged through my research.
Ruins My Image and Paper Caves – Copies (installed at the Hunter Museum of American Art)
Year: 2018
Medium: Mixed Media on Paper, Photocopies
Size (h x w x d): 20' x 24' (wall piece) 6' x 16' (floor piece)
"Ruins My Image" is an expanding series of drawings that originated from a single reproduction of prehistoric San rock art from the Matopo Hills of Zimbabwe. This small 3000-year-old yellow ochre
painting that depicted an injured human became the subject of my inspiration for approximately 200 works on paper. These drawings explore the challenges and complexity found in evaluating an example of early representation. My final installation acts as a map of citations, distortions, and fantasies that emerged through my research.
"Paper Caves – Copies" is an installation made from photocopies of archeological and anthropological texts that relate back to the San rock art found in the Matopo Hills region. Unlike the drawings displayed above this work, "Paper Caves – Copies" contains various hand-cut figures extracted directly from this reference material. The figures, which stand approximately 1 inch tall, represent the imaginative properties that the artist projects on the subject.
Ruins My Image (detail)
Year: 2018
Medium: Pen and Crayon on Paper
Size (h x w x d): 12" x 7"
This is a detail for the "Ruins My Image" installation.
Paper Caves – Copies (detail)
Year: 2018
Medium: Photocopies
Size (h x w x d): 16' x 6'
"Paper Caves – Copies" is an installation made from photocopies of archeological and anthropological texts that relate back to the San rock art found in the Matopo Hills region. Unlike the drawings displayed above this work, "Paper Caves – Copies" contains various hand-cut figures extracted directly from this reference material. The figures, which stand approximately 1 inch tall, represent the imaginative properties that the artist projects on the subject.
Century Zoo IX (Installation View at Weatherspoon Museum)
Medium: Mud, Paper, Charcoal, Paint, Wood
Year: 2011-2018
Size (h x w x d): 18' x 6' x 14'
Century Zoo is an evolving installation, which consists of representations of classical antiquity. Each element begins as an observational drawing from the original object, which I then eroded through my studio process. Each time Century Zoo gets reinstalled, more corruption takes place, emphasizing how interpretation and analysis of cultural artifacts create a misrepresentation of the subject. These new
'corrupted' objects inadvertently reveal the motivations and fantasies of the artist and their cultural environment.
Century Zoo VII (detail), Gallery Protocol
Medium: Mud, Paper, Charcoal, Acrylic, Wood
Year: 2011-2018
Size (h x w x d): Dimensions Variable
Century Zoo is an evolving installation, which consists of representations of classical antiquity. Each element begins as an observational drawing from the original object, which I then eroded through my studio process. Each time Century Zoo gets reinstalled, more corruption takes place, emphasizing how interpretation and analysis of cultural artifacts create a misrepresentation of the subject. These new 'corrupted' objects inadvertently reveal the motivations and fantasies of the artist and their cultural environment.
Century Zoo VII (detail), Gallery Protocol
Medium: Mud, Charcoal, Acrylic, Paper, Wood
Year: 2011-2018
Size (h x w x d): Dimensions Variable
Century Zoo is an evolving installation, which consists of representations of classical antiquity. Each element begins as an observational drawing from the original object, which I then eroded through my studio process. Each time Century Zoo gets reinstalled, more corruption takes place, emphasizing how interpretation and analysis of cultural artifacts create a misrepresentation of the subject. These new 'corrupted' objects inadvertently reveal the motivations and fantasies of the artist and their cultural environment.
Dry Erase
Medium: Whiteboard Paint, Whiteboard Marker, Styrofoam
Year: 2016
Size (h x w x d): Dimensions Variable
The Dry Erase a group of stacked boulders reminiscent of forms imbued with rock paintings – these artificial masses are encased in the ultra-smooth paint that has been engineered for dry-erase boards, a writing surface that is now ubiquitous in the contemporary workplace. These sleek white rock structures are then covered with drawings done with dry-erase markers, a medium that is highly impermanent and stigmatized by boardroom meetings.
Musees d'art et d'histoire de Genève III (detail)
Medium: Graphite on Paper
Size (h x w x d): 26" x 40"
Year: 2017
These are drawings in the series that attempt to draw all displayed items of a museum's collection in a single composition. The result looks similar to an x-ray, as all systems of hierarchy were eliminated through rendering each artwork or artifact with a uniform line weight or value – avoiding special attention for any object.
Musees d'art et d'histoire de Genève III (detail)
Medium: Graphite on Paper
Size (h x w x d): 26" x 40"
Year: 2017
These are drawings in the series that attempt to draw all displayed items of a museum's collection in a single composition. The result looks similar to an x-ray, as all systems of hierarchy were eliminated through rendering each artwork or artifact with a uniform line weight or value – avoiding special attention for any object.
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