Ian Ross paints like he surfs – throwing fast, kinetic, stylish lines all over a wide variety of walls. While the angles he draws on a wave are fleetingly appreciated by lonely seals in the frigid waters of Northern California and a handful of human observers, his skill and agility in the art world are reaching an international audience and leaving a salient mark, even when his work is designed to be impermanent.
In the art world Ross has made his way into the spotlight, and yet doesn’t hesitate to take risks or give back to his community. He’s been commissioned to paint for celebrities, engaged in a residency with Facebook, been filmed painting by MTV, and established a gallery that had a successful run in SOMA called Rocha Art.
He’s also contributed images to organizations such as Surfrider Foundation and been involved with the creation of a non-profit project called 1Brush. As it says on their website, “1 Brush Initiative is a San Francisco-based non-profit that facilitates public art projects and empowers youth by giving them access to hands-on arts education. The initiative’s goal is to create a street art museum experience in San Francisco while also supporting underserved youth.”
As an artist, influenced by the environment around him, his scope has been expansive, painting canvases and gallery walls, large urban murals, shipping containers, abandoned cars in sugarcane fields, offices and retail spaces, residences and more recently vast stretches of beach with a rake.
Although they incorporate the same style found in his more permanent work, the sand paintings offer a different platform and concept – they’re temporary, contoured to the natural surroundings, and low impact by design.
Like an Andrew Goldsworthy piece, or the intricate sand paintings of Tibetan Buddhists, or street art painted over after completion, Ross’s expressions on the coast usher in a sense of impermanence that’s impossible to overlook. There’s a process and the transitory life of a large scale expression before the ocean washes it clean.
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