Ross Bleckner's paintings when they referenced the AIDs epidemic brought him national recognition. As a gay man himself, Bleckner produced haunting artworks that poetically emphasised the community links and the enormous scale of the tragedy, but for him referenced the passing of specific friends and colleagues.
Read MoreEarly examples that incorporate ominous medical information include: Small Count (1980), with white dots representing decreasing white blood cells; 8,122+ As of January 1986 (1986), with accurate sequential statistics of deaths painted in its corners, and Throbbing Hearts (1994), referencing the tell-tale marks of Kaposi's sarcoma.
However many of Bleckner's paintings also involve appropriated Op art abstraction. The glowing striped fields of works such as Brothers' Swords (1986) and Infatuation (1986—1987) comment in turn on the viewing body that is thinking about a particular body in crisis, or alluding to bars of a cage.
Often he incorporates symbolic plants, birds, lights or candelabras that while restlessly vertiginous, also evoke deep melancholy, bereavement, and profound loss. These are evident in works such as Bird Painting For Bid for Life (1995), Love and Lost (2020), and Memorial II (1994).
