Miles McEnery Gallery is delighted to announce an exhibition of new paintings by Alexander Ross, on view 19 February through 28 March 2026 at 525 West 22nd Street. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated publication featuring an essay by Liam Otero.
This new body of work furthers Ross’ long-standing exploration of perceptual ambiguity and organic form, extending a distinctive visual language shaped by biological systems, material transformation, and the porous boundary between abstraction and representation.
Each work begins as a small clay model, which Ross photographs and digitally alters before translating the image into oil on canvas. Each form emerges gradually, composed of discrete bands of color articulated through interlocking brushstrokes. As these elements converge across the surface, they build the image and give the forms an underlying structure and rhythmic coherence.
Color and surface remain central to this work. Vivid yet tempered hues lend the compositions a tactile intensity, while shifts in depth subtly destabilize the picture plane. The backgrounds play an equally active role. Rendered as a matrix suggestive of molecular chains or fluctuating energy fields, they operate as a containing force, suspending each form in an isolated, hovering state and heightening the sense of spatial ambiguity.
Ross evokes biological references without settling into literal representation, collapsing distinctions between the natural and the invented. As Liam Otero observes, “There is a hyperreal quality to Ross’s compositions… Yet, the dynamism of Ross’s painterly buildup of these biomorphic shapes… causes the subjects to actively transform before our eyes into something altogether beyond nature or… scientific explanation.” Ross’ newest paintings leave viewers suspended between recognition and imagination, inviting a close, immersive encounter with fluid, ever-shifting forms.
Alexander Ross (b. 1960 in Denver, CO) received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, MA.
Ross’ work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, St. Louis, MO; David Nolan Gallery, New York, NY; FIENDISH PLOTS, Lincoln, NE; Galerie Hussenot, Paris, France; Galerie Judin, Berlin, Germany; LABspace, Hillsdale, NY; Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, NY; Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; New York Foundation for the Arts, New York, NY; and Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA, among others.
The artist has been included in group exhibitions at numerous international institutions such as the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY; Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, Brattleboro, VT; The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York, NY; Institut Valencià d’Art Modern, Valencia, Spain; Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, Mexico; New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY; P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, NY; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, among others.
His work may be found in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL; British Museum, London, United Kingdom; Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO; The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY; Hallmark Art Collection, Kansas City, MO; Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY; The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO; Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, RI; and the Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA.
He is the recipient of awards including the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation Individual Support Grant; the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship; The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award; New York Foundation for the Arts Painting Fellowship; and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant.
Ross lives and works in Great Barrington, MA.