Julie Zener Gallery

A prolific muralist, ceramicist, installation artist, and painter, Ian Ross is a San Francisco-based interdisciplinary artist whose love of the natural world deeply influences his practice. Creative since he was a young child, Ross was raised in a family with three generations of artists. Born and raised in Marin County, he draws from his meditative, solitary experiences in Northern California’s forests and beaches to inform his signature approach to abstract imagery. Ross’s background in ceramic sculpture comes through in his painting style. Similarly to the way he works with clay, he paints with gestural marks that respond the medium’s tactile qualities. Whether working on a canvas, a wall, or a sculpture, Ross allows himself to get carried away in an intuitive creative process, channeling the calm he feels while communing with nature through organic shapes.

Ross has developed his unique style for 20 years and takes great pride in his spontaneous method. His street art style has become widely accepted and revered in a fine art realm.  Ross creates his wires without the burden of intention and reacts to each moment with bold graffiti inspired forms and colors.

Often termed as Hyperorganic, Ross’s unique style predominantly depicts intensely energetic, almost frenzied organic forms contrasted to expressive, geometric-abstracted patterning. While imagery for each mural, installation, and exhibit responds to a particular moment, space, and time with bold forms and color, they are just as equally created through a series of repetitive, rhythmic motions in a contemplative and thoughtful advancement towards completion. Throughout his 20-year career, he has created murals and installations at the offices of prominent businesses including Facebook, Lyft, Google, Tango, The Cosmopolitan Hotel and LinkedIn. His paintings are included in several private collections of high profile executives and celebrities.

I create instinctually as I go without a specific direction or goal in mind just to learn about the work as it is being made and continue the mysterious conversation between the lines, the forms, and myself. I believe my process and the work I create can answer deep personal questions about myself, and possibly explain something about our human experience and the struggle for man to coexist with his natural surroundings.