Deborah Ross is one of America’s leading wildlife artists. Her work has included descriptions of nature for zoological parks and natural history institutions as well as scientific and popular publications.

 

               Her paintings are in site in permanent exhibits across America. These include: Marie Selby Botanical Garden, Sarasota, Florida; Wildlife Conservation Society, New York; Cleveland Botanical Gardens; Ohio, Miami Metro Zoo, Florida; Riverbanks Zoo, South Carolina; Marine Park Nature Center, Brooklyn, New York; University of Oklahoma Natural History Museum, Norman, Oklahoma and the Aquarium of the Pacific, California.
Her work has been published in: The New York Times, The New Yorker, Harpers Magazine, Discover and Natural History Magazine.

  Ross is on the faculty of the School Visual Arts in New York and also teaches workshops in animal drawing and movement for animation studios including: Dreamworks, Pixar and Walt Disney Feature Animations.
“My professional life has often provided the framework for my more personal visions as an artist. I first went to Africa in 1987 to further research a commission to illustrate a book on baboon behavior, Almost Human, A Journey into the World of Baboons. Author Shirley Strum invited me to visit her Uaso Ngiro Baboon Project in Kenya and experience baboon troop life from the inside. I began to accompany the researcher’s on their daily rounds – observing and noting down in the particular shorthand of my vocation – the many simultaneous and complicated events that make up a baboon troops life – and soon realized the immense potential the situation held for me as an artist. I extended my visit to a nine-month involvement with Kenya.”
 
    “I work in watercolor because of the speed, mobility and emotional richness of the medium. My technique derives from the oriental school of painting. A broad sweep of color applied with the full body of the brush lays down the overall gesture. I then use the fine tip of the brush for a telling detail – the arch of a wrist or angle of brow line - to set and ground .the pose. All of this must be done quickly, for I only work from life. Once the moment is past, I stop.  My ambition is a portrayal of the essence of a subject distilled during the moments of observation. This “genii loci” (spirit of the place) is severely depleted and often lost when an animal is displaced from it true habitat.”
Ross has returned to Africa many times since 1987 to paint animals and the landscapes they inhabit from direct observation. In pursuit of this vision I developed working relationships with research scientists in the field and have spent numerous hours on savannas, forests, and dunes observing baboons, insects, and birds.
These residencies include: Uaso Ngiro Baboon Project, Kenya (1987, 1990, 1996), Amboseli Elephant Research Project, Kenya (1987, 1990, 1994, 1996), Mkumi National Park, Tanzania (1991), Lake Mburo National Park, Uganda (1994),  Guinea, West Africa  (2005, 2006); East National Park, Kenya (1997), Kirindy Forest, Madagascar (1998, 2000, 2001, 2005); Itaparica, Brazil (2004) and Cape Cod National Seashore, Provincetown, MA (2002).           
Several of these journeys Ross has documented in painting essays published in Natural History Magazine including:  “The Lemurs of Kirindy” September 2000, “Looking for Maria” April 1998, and “A Kenya Sketchbook” Dec/Jan 1996/97.
Her drawings and watercolors from Africa have been exhibited in California, Kenya, Guinea and New York: Wave Hill House Gallery, Riverdale, NY, “Birds, Flowers and Bugs” (June-September 2002), The Wildlife Gallery, NYC, “Wildlife Watercolors – the art of the field” (June–September 1996), The French Cultural Center, Nairobi, Kenya, “Etchings” (May-June 1994), and at California State University, Long Beach CA, “Animals” (March 1992).