Clifford Ross: Digital Waves
January 21–October 18, 2026 

This winter, the National Gallery of Art will present Clifford Ross: Digital Waves, an immersive video installation from the artist’s ongoing exploration of the sea and his fascination with rendering the complexity, power, and dynamism of ocean movement through computer-generated media. The work will be on view beginning January 17, 2026, in the Rotunda of the West Building.

For 30 years, Clifford Ross has sought to capture the sublime experience of facing the vast and unpredictable ocean. Digital Waves emerged from Ross’s work with technologists to develop bespoke methods that can be used to generate videos displayed at an immense and immersive scale. In Digital Waves, Ross mimics the seemingly random shapes and movements of waves across millions of pixels, each one corresponding with an intensely bright LED bulb. The constantly shifting graphics convey a sense of abstraction and lyricism evocative of the abstract expressionist painters whom Ross counts as primary inspirations.

Merging a digital world with a modernist tradition, Digital Waves invites viewers to lose themselves in wonder while simultaneously prompting them to reflect on the natural world and their own place in it. Installed on a 23-foot-high screen in the West Building’s Rotunda, where thousands of visitors will encounter it each day, the work will be situated in direct conversation with the space’s neoclassical elements—including its iconic fountain—and juxtaposes the motion of real and virtual water.

Clifford Ross (born 1952) is a multimedia artist whose practice has repeatedly drawn upon technological innovation to further his artistic expression. After graduating from Yale University in 1974 with a BA in art and art history, he began his career as a painter and sculptor, deeply influenced by abstract expressionism. In the mid-1990s, Ross began to explore the potential of photography, and soon after, he set aside his painting and sculpture practices to devote himself to evoking the sublime power of nature through photographs. His first major series, Hurricane Waves (1996–2021), was comprised of photographs of huge waves generated by hurricanes, taken by Ross as he waded into the water with a camera while tethered to an assistant on the shore. His fascination with oceanic movement prompted him to work with computer-generated video as well as still photography.