REACH: WREN.ROSS[AT]GMAIL.COM
My work makes itself using me, and I employ storytelling, myth and disguise. These ciphers are necessary because commenting on current events is difficult.
Storytelling is how the world links hearts with itself. It is the constantly pouring soul of that thing Larger than Us. Storytelling captains my work most, it is something everyone can reach into; a bridge between differences, samenesses, fears and errors. Storytelling relies on symbol to pour. Symbol is blunt and articulate on your behalf. It is the flashing coin-brilliance and the trembling ribbons hung on storytelling. Symbol is visually static but always changing. It has no preferred pronouns, cannot be owned or kept hidden. It is a currency of meaning – you see it and it sees you.
Mythology is like storytelling, but more architectural, less decorative. Mythology is important because it is not law that was tipped onto us, but a joint agreement about what magical answers exist for our humble questions: Myth reassures us that the trees lose their leaves with purpose, not dispassionate surrender. It is something to which everyone belongs. It is a portable transmission – like a radio – that pats us on the back when we enter a roomful of strangers as it to say this has happened before, will happen again.
All living things are seduced by disguise, by the idea of becoming unknowable. Of all animals, humans need disguise most. There is something liberating about being able to move and speak without being recognized, without being known. It is not, like moths and chameleons, that we desire to blend facelessly into the world. Rather, that we like to be cloaked in a husk of Otherness. Invisibility makes us buoyant. Perhaps disguise helps us feel most like other animals again, most wild, belonging the most to our landscape. And of course, disguises can be cast off, discarded or reworked.
My work helps unpack broader questions about human beings. We are always forgetting what we are. It takes an effort of will to see ourselves in the cracks in the sidewalks or in broken bottles along the highway. But I'm certain we're there even if right now we are trying very hard to be invisible to one another. Everywhere there is being, both the moving doing kind, and the still watching kind. I am an advocate of stillness and observation, particularly of the mundane things we walk by every day. If I look hard enough I can reach back into some failed memory or myth about being disguised as a bottle or a crack, and then I'm invested in those things, I become a steward of my Beingness everywhere. Then my drawings can be beacons.
EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF UTAH, MASTER'S OF SOCIAL WORK CUM LAUDE 2016.
RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL OF DESIGN, BACHELOR OF FINE ARTS WITH HONORS, 2006.
CALIFORNIA COLLEGE OF ARTS AND CRAFTS, FOUNDATION STUDIES, ACADEMIC YEAR 2002.
EXHIBITIONS
**Upcoming
**Snake : : Shuttle. 801.Salon. Salt Lake City, October 2023
Past Juried Exhibitions
Greater Utah, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Salt Lake City, UT. July 2023.
Bountiful Davis 48th Statewide Exhibition, BDAC, Bountiful, Utah. May 2023
Statewide Annual 20 Competition Painting and Sculpture, online exhibition. Salt Lake City, November 2020
Myth and Memory; curated by the Halophyte collective. Finch Lane Gallery, Salt Lake City, UT. September 2020
Statewide Annual 19 Competition Works on Paper, Rio Gallery. Salt Lake City, UT, 2019.
2018 Spectacle: Seven Deadly Sins, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, curated show. Salt Lake City, UT. June 2018.
2018 Statewide Competition, Bountiful Davis Art Center, juried exhibition. Bountiful, UT, February 2018.
Representing the West: A New Frontier, juried exhibition, Sangre de Cristo Arts Center, Pueblo, CO. February, 2018.
5th Annual International Juried Print Exhibition, juried exhibition, New Grounds Remarque Print Workshop, Albuquerque, NM. December 2017.
Statewide Annual 17 Painting Competition, juried exhibition, Rio Grande Gallery. Salt Lake City, Utah, November 2017.
2017 Statewide Competition, Bountiful Davis Art Center, juried exhibition. Bountiful, UT, February 2017.
300 Plates, Art Access Gallery, juried exhibition. Salt Lake City, UT, 2017.
Utah Ties, Central Utah Arts Center, juried exhibition. Salt Lake City, UT, 2017.
Honoring Female Utah Artists at Adobe, juried exhibition. Adobe HQ, Lehi, UT, 2017.
Southern Futurism, juried exhibition, Healthcare Gallery. Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 2017.
Statewide Annual 16 Competition Works on Paper, juried exhibition, Rio Grande Gallery. Salt Lake City, Utah, 2016.
35x35, Finch Lane Gallery, juried exhibition. Salt Lake City, Utah, 2016.
President's Arts Show, juried exhibition, Center for Arts & Media. Salt Lake City, Utah, 2016.
Alfred Lamborne Prize Exhibition, juried exhibition, Sorenson Unity Center Black Box. Salt Lake City, Utah, 2015.
PAST Group Exhibitions
You May Find Yourself, Modern West Fine art, curated show. Salt Lake City, UT. May 2022.
Range | Big and Small, Modern West Fine art, curated show. Salt Lake City, UT. December 2021
Right Here, Right Now. Modern West Fine Art, Salt Lake City, August 2020. Southern Utah Art Museum, Cedar City, UT
Traveling Exhibition, Utah Arts and Museums. RIo Gallery, Salt Lake City, UT. June 2020
Women to the Front: Perspectives on the Suffrage Anniversary, Rio Gallery. Salt Lake City, UT, 2020.
New West, Modern West Fine Art, curated show. Salt Lake City, UT. April 2020.
Myth, Modern West Fine Art. Salt Lake City, UT. September 2019
Making Her Mark, Meyer Gallery. Park City, UT. August 2019
Paper and Thread, Modern West Fine Art. Salt Lake City, UT. June 2019
New West, Modern West Fine Art, curated show. Salt Lake City, UT. April 2019.
Heavy Lifting, Saltgrass Printmakers Collective. Salt Lake City, UT. 2017
Biotic, H Gallery. Ventura, CA. August, 2017.
Poor Yorick Open Studios, guest artist, Poor Yorick Studios. Salt Lake City, Utah, 2016.
Round 9, Kayo Gallery. Salt Lake City, Utah, 2013.
Box Paper Scissors, Kayo Gallery. Salt Lake City, Utah, 2012.
Seeing Without Knowing, Kayo Gallery. Salt Lake City, Utah, 2010.
The Hideout, Garfo Art Space. Salt Lake City, Utah, 2010.
Inner Beauty, curated by the VIEW Foundation, Kayo Gallery. Salt Lake City, Utah, 2009.
Fusion, The Women's Art Center. Salt Lake City, Utah, 2008.
337 Project Community Opening, on-site location. Salt Lake City, Utah 2007.
This is the Place, Signed and Numbered Gallery. Salt Lake City, Utah 2007.
Past Solo Exhibitions
The Summons Has Reached Us, Finch Lane Gallery, solo show. Salt Lake City, UT. June, 2018.
The Forge, The Gibbous, The Heron, The Oilcan: Contemporary Constellations for Navigation, The Projects Gallery, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, solo show. Salt Lake City, UT. March, 2018.
Sticks Laid in Patterns and Other Mundane Oracles,The Alice Gallery, solo show. Salt Lake City, UT. July, 2017.
Reaching Redly Upwards, The Barrett Art Center, Crenson Gallery, solo show. Poughkeepsie, NY, May 2017.
Spills, Stains: some nice, some not so nice, solo show, NoBrow. Salt Lake City, Utah, 2011.
ACCOLADES
Creative Achievement Award (Scholarship), California College of Arts and Crafts, 2002.
Merit Award, 35x35, September, 2016.
Juror's Award, SLC Statewide Annual Exhibition, 2016.
Attrition acquired by Utah's State Fine Art Collection, 2016.
2nd Place Award, Bountiful David 42nd Statewide Annual Show, 2017.
Juror’s Award, SLC Statewide Annual Exhibition, 2019.
3rd place, Bountiful David 48rh Statewide Annual Competition, 2023.
Star Altas IV, acquired by Utah’s County Fine Art Collection, 2023.
publications / Public art
Work in Progress, studio visit, interview. Southwest Contemporary Art magazine, January 2023. https://southwestcontemporary.com/work-in-progress-with-wren-ross/
You May Find Yourself, the Interviews from Salt Lake City. Juxtapoz magazine, June 2022. https://www.juxtapoz.com/news/installation/you-may-find-yourself-the-interviews/
Main Street Kiosk Project , a public art commission to install large scale panels in re-purposed news kiosks as part of a Downtown SLC Presents. On view June - December, 2018.
To Infinity, an interview with SLUG magazine, March 2018.
Saltfront, Issue no. 5, 2017. Incidental Drawings, selected incidents.
Sego + Palisade, issue no. 1. Concerning Hecate. 2016.