press release :: anima mundi

NEW YORK, NY - Jen Bekman is pleased to present anima mundi, an exhibition of new paintings by Amy Ross. The exhibition will be on view from April 27 - June 7, 2007, at jen bekman, located at 6 Spring Street, between Elizabeth and Bowery, New York, 10012.

Ross’s work is a series of intricate paintings using graphite, watercolor and walnut ink on paper and directly on walls. She creates the complex and intriguing marriage between plants and animals. Says Ross, "What would happen if the DNA sequence of a plant or mushroom were spliced with that of an animal?"

Jen Bekman will host an opening reception for the artist on Friday April 27th from 6:00 - 8:00pm at the gallery.

This is Ross's first solo exhibition in New York City. She has shown in dozens of exhibitions from Massachusetts to California. Her recent sold-out solo exhibition at Boston's Allston Skirt Gallery was reviewed in the Boston Globe, which described her work as "beautiful… but packed with moral and emotional complexity." Ross creates spectacularly realistic images of nature, but upon closer look the viewer realizes the illusion; a finch's head at the tip of a white birch tree, or a tiny quail's release from a blooming magnolia tree. In her statement Ross writes: "These images subvert the traditional genre of botanical illustration by approaching the close study of the natural world through the lens of genetic engineering and mutation gone awry."

Gallery director Jen Bekman observes, "I am absolutely thrilled to host this exhibition and welcome Amy into the jen bekman family. Her paintings seem simply beautiful at first, but they are also sly commentary on a modern world where most every aspect of nature has been manipulated, spliced, transformed and morphed by human intervention."

About the Artist

Amy Ross (b. 1972, Denville, NJ) attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston from 1998 to 2000. She earned a BA in Religious Studies from Connecticut College in 1994 and a Master’s in Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School in 1997.

Amy has had one - and two-person exhibitions at Allston Skirt Gallery (Boston, MA); Schlosberg Gallery at Montserrat College of Art (Beverly, MA); Motel (Portland, OR); and Overtones (Los Angeles, CA). Her work has been included in numerous group shows, including the DeCordova Museum (Lincoln, MA); Cleveland State University Art Gallery (Cleveland, OH); ArtSpace (New Haven, CT); and Morgan Lehman Gallery (New York, NY).; and at Junc Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, and Rice/Polak Gallery, Provincetown, MA.

Her work has been reviewed in The Boston Globe, The Boston Phoenix, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Portland Mercury, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, and Art New England.

Hours: Wednesday - Saturday, noon - 6pm or by private appointment.

For images and/or additional information, please contact Lydia Kenny: 212.219.0166 or via email: press@jenbekman.com.