Emerging as a prominent artist in New York during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, Ross Bleckner’s paintings are an investigation of change, loss, and memory, often suggesting meditations on the body, health and disease, much like a memento mori. He is known for his large-scale depictions of a multitude of subjects–notably flora and fauna–that prompt meditation on life’s fragility, organic power, and eroticism.

To this day, Bleckner is the youngest artist to receive a midcareer retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, at the age of 45. His paintings can be found in several major museums including the MoMA, NY and in the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, as well as numerous exhibitions, including at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA, Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin, Reina Sofia, Madrid, Los Angeles County Museum, CA, and Kunstmuseum Luzern, Switzerland.