Ross Bleckner makes large scale paintings that deal primarily with remembrance and loss. Stemming from his experience in New York during the AIDS crisis, his paintings strike a balance between abstraction and representation and have often been described as memento moris. Another ongoing theme in his work has been the contrast between light and dark—between the glory and fragility of life. His work is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Whitney Museum of American Art, the Guggenheim Museum, New York and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art among others. The artist is represented by the Petzel Gallery in New York.