Born in New York City in 1958, the Bruce Museum’s 2025 artist-in-residence, Moses Ros, draws abundant inspiration from the natural world for his creative endeavors. In HUMAN / NATURE — which responds to the exhibition Blanche Lazzell: Becoming an American Modernist (Bruce Museum, February 6–April 27, 2025) — Ros utilizes the interplay of vibrant colors and their absence to highlight pressing environmental concerns. Similar to Lazzell’s iconic white-line woodcuts that decompose the environment into colorful segments separated by veins of white paper, Ros organizes his artwork into interconnected, abstract shapes. Through his paintings, mobiles, and sculptures, Ros employs a richly colored, camouflage-like motif interspersed with cut-outs of familiar wildlife, echoing Lazzell’s well-known white-line technique.
The vivid colors that fill the exhibition at the Bruce Museum reflect Ros’s deep appreciation for the beauty of nature; however, they also serve as a dual layer of camouflage, veiling the harsh truths that his work embodies. Typically developed for military and hunting purposes, camouflage cleverly alters the visual perception of the environment to hide the lurking destructive forces. The species depicted by Ros—including the passenger pigeon, dodo bird, and regal fritillary butterfly—have suffered catastrophic declines due to human activities and are now endangered or extinct. By immersing the viewers in an environment crafted by the artist, this exhibition aspires to celebrate the splendor of nature while also confronting the irreversible consequences of human actions on the planet.
About the Artist
Moses Ros is a sculptor, painter, and printmaker of Dominican heritage based in New York City. His artworks are designed to uplift the human spirit, utilizing radiant colors, dynamic forms, and interactive components. Ros has held solo exhibitions at venues such as the Sugar Hill Museum, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, and the Yeshiva University Museum, as well as at the Paterson Museum in New Jersey. His works have also been featured in the Yoryi Morel Gallery at the Institute of Culture and Art in Santiago, Dominican Republic.
He has been awarded multiple public sculpture commissions from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the Bronx Council on the Arts, and the New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority. His artwork is included in various public and corporate collections, such as the Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, El Museo del Barrio, and the AT&T Collection.
For more information, visit brucemuseum.org.
