Image credit: Aaron Chapman (2019)
Rebecca Ross is a visual artist based on Kombumerri Country (Queensland’s Southern Gold Coast) whose practice navigates the junctures of site, situation and sensation. Her work, which she describes as ‘exercises in mapping’, combines found maps and video, text, photography, collage, mixed media and installation. Her most recent work is concerned with the creation of conceptual maps that traverse geopolitical concerns and notions of transcendence in airspace, ocean space and terrestrial zones. Rebecca’s expanded mapping practice includes recreational planespotting and surfing. She is an active part of the international ADB-S flight tracking network and a founder and member of the Artist Boardriders Club.
Since graduating from Queensland University of Technology with a Masters of Fine Art in 2005, Rebecca has exhibited at the Embassy of Australia in Washington D.C. U.S.A., British School at Rome in Italy, University of Queensland, Queensland University of Technology, Museum of Brisbane, HOTA Home of the Arts, Metro Arts, Outer Space, Bleach Festival and Festival 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games. In 2012 Rebecca was awarded the Rome Studio at the British School at Rome by the Australia Council for the Arts to research the Galleria delle carte geografiche (Gallery of Maps) located in Vatican City. Rebecca has been the recipient of numerous grants, including the Brisbane City Council Lord Mayor's Young and Emerging Artists' Fellowship in 2004, which have supported her to travel to Malta (Gozo, Valletta), Italy (Venice, Milan), United States of America (New York, Los Angeles, Miami) and New Zealand (Wellington, Auckland) to undertake site-based residencies and research.
In 2013 she returned to the Gold Coast where she founded The Walls, a nationally recognised artist-run space that she directed until 2021. In 2020 she was the recipient of an International Women’s Day Leadership Award for her contribution to the creative arts on the Gold Coast. Rebecca has completed permanent public artworks at the Northern Busway Tunnel, Robina Health Precinct, Gold Coast University Hospital and Mater Private Hospital, as well as temporary commissions at the Royal Brisbane Womens’ Hospital Busway and Metricon Stadium. Her work is held in the collections of HOTA Home of the Arts, Queensland University of Technology Art Museum and private collections in Australia, New Zealand & Italy.
Concurrent with her solo artistic work Rebecca has collaborated with artists Erika Scott and Byron Coathup, and was Gallery Manager of IMA@Surfers for the Institute of Modern Art in Surfers Paradise in 2011 and a sessional academic in the art departments at Queensland College of Art, Griffith University and Southern Cross University between 2015-2021. She is currently Program Producer of Generate GC, a City of Gold Coast initiative that supports local artists to make artwork within the community and place.