Clifford Ross is a multimedia artist who began his career as a painter and sculptor after graduating from Yale University in 1974. In 1994, after many years of painting and sculpting, Ross became interested in photography, devoting himself to intensive experimentation in the darkroom to explore his realistic and abstract tendencies. He began his well-known Hurricane Wave series in 1996, entering the surf during extreme weather, often up to his neck, while tethered to an assistant on land. His photographic techniques expanded over time, using digital methods, inkjet printing, and ultimately developing his unique method of printing on wood.

In this year’s Platform, multimedia artist Clifford Ross will engage with several areas of the Museum, including the interior entrance lobby and select locations within the Parrish collection galleries for his mixed media installation, Light | Waves. Fascinated by the force and rhythm of nature and a desire to simulate and enhance these characteristics, Ross invented and patented new camera systems, taking the photographic process to another level. For the large-scale prints on view from the Hurricane Waves series, which the artist photographed during storms off the Long Island coast in East Hampton in the 1990s, Ross recently applied a new method of digitally printing the images directly onto hand selected sheets of matching maple veneer–a wood notable for the liveliness of its grain and warm color–using ultra-violet cured ink and a commercial printer.

Platform is an open-ended invitation to a single artist to consider the entire Parrish Art Museum as a potential site for works that transcend disciplinary boundaries, encouraging new ways to experience art, architecture, and the landscape.

Platform: Clifford Ross: Light | Waves is made possible, in part, by the generous support of Bloomberg Philanthropies, David and Cynthia Wassong, Lynne Tarnopol, Sant Ambroeus, Fiona and Eric Rudin, Joseph M. Cohen, Andrea Crane, May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, RYAN LEE Gallery, Sonnabend Gallery, Fern and Lenard Tessler, and Jane Wesman and Donald Savelson. WSHU is the exclusive radio sponsor.