The majority of Joel Ross' recent sculptures have taken the form of roadside signage, which are made and then sited at locations ranging from single-lane gravel farm roads to major highways. Most of these interventions are not formally authorized so the work's encounter with its initial audience, travelers on the road, is often rather brief. The signs are left on site until they are removed by authorities or by citizens. Most of the signs are removed within 24 hours. A series of photographs of these installations and related works on paper become a record of these events as well as the primary point of engagement with their second audience, the art-going public.
The preliminary stage of his work is experimentation with text and image executed as very graphic, brightly colored works on paper. The text and/or images from these drawings often lead to signage-sculptures of one kind or another. The messages in the drawings (and subsequent signage) are culled from a variety of sources including news stories, advertising, radio reports, t-shirts, posters, graffiti, and bits of overheard conversation. Sometimes the messages presented are direct quotes. Sometimes they are an amalgamation of several sources. In other cases, they are fabrications intended to resonate and reverberate with the authorial voice shifting, vibrating in opposition and sometimes collapsing altogether.
Joel received his MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1992 and his BFA from Tufts University in 1990. He received a discharge from the United States Marine Corps in 1984. He was born in Port Arthur, Texas in 1966. He is the son of a police sergeant and the grandson of a Baptist preacher. He has gone to great lengths to return lost wallets to their rightful owners. He still has the nametag he was issued at his first job, and he doesn't spend a lot of time on his hair. He lives in Urbana, Illinois with his wife and two daughters, where he is currently an Associate Professor in the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
He is represented by Monique Meloche Gallery in Chicago.
