31 Dec 2020

Elliot Ross: Selected Work 2007-2020

Workroom Gallery

Reviewed by Lani Asher

Elliot Ross's exhibition of black-and-white animal photos are anthropomorphic chiaroscuro portraits of frogs, horses, monkeys, snakes, seals, and birds. Photographed from life, they do not reference any specific place or landscape. Images of faces, eyes, mouths, skin, feathers, and fur emerge from dark backgrounds and are both exotic and familiar. The animals' eyes meet our gaze, not unlike Rembrandt's beautiful and sometimes tragic portraits.

On the opposite walls of the gallery is "Windstorm Variations," a suite of black-and-white photos of windblown leaves on trees located in Ross's San Francisco neighborhood. The images are blurry, without a place to rest, even a horizon line. Visually "Windstorm Variations" are very different from Ross's animal portraits, but in both series his camera captures the beauty of fleeting moments our hearts and minds share with animals and plants, our fellow sentient beings.