Philip Ross is exhibiting two projects that enable plants to flourish in environments that substitute technology for human care. Junior Return, a self-contained survival capsule for one plant, consists of four blown-glass enclosures that provide a controlled hydroponic environment. A rechargeable battery provides the energy required to operate LED lights that sustain the enclosed plant, and a pump for circulating air and water. The digital timer counts down each minute and the activation of the pump. The entire system is portable and secure, maintaining the plant in a dwarf state by supplying only enough sustenance to survive but not thrive. Roundabout is a bunker-like container based on the ubiquitous plaza planter. Though minimal in appearance, it contains a complex system to support an assortment of living plants in an autonomous environment where circulating air, light, and protection are provided.

Philip Ross makes sculptural artifacts and installations using living organic materials, including fungus, shellfish, plants and compost. His work has been exhibited at The Pomona College Art Museum, Claremont, CA; Sonoma County Museum, Santa Rosa, CA; and the Catherine Clark Gallery, San Francisco, CA. In this next year his work will be seen internationally at the Long-March Gallery, Beijing, China; Gallery Kapelica, Ljubljana, Slovenia. He has had residencies at the Symbiotica Laboratory at the University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia; Oxbow School, Sonoma, CA; the Exploratorium, San Francisco, CA; and Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA. He has received the Fleishhacker Foundation’s Eureka Fellowship, and a MacDowell Colony Fellowship. He earned a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA, and MFA from Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA. www.philross.org