Joan Stuart Ross + BODY PARTS series +

Joan Stuart Ross, on her most recent series, says

"My recent mixed media prints combine relief, monotype, digital images, hand stitching, collage and encaustic on vintage book pages. They are influenced by how, throughout history, body parts of ancient cultures’ sculptures have been joined, willy-nilly, to create hybrid forms and disparate personalities. I see these buried figures, discovered in midden heaps and under piles of wars’ refuse, as motifs that emphasize vulnerability and triste, a mournful quality from their having been thrown together from incongruent parts—a lamentation for our own time. These personalities have had a place in their found environment, and when unearthed, they take on new life".

Joan Stuart Ross studied at Yale, and earned MA and MFA degrees from the University of Iowa. She won SAM’s Betty Bowen Award, a NIAUSI Rome Fellowship, and has had residencies in Paris and Norway.