Indoor plant enthusiasts, nature buffs, desert dreamers and fans of the artfully fantastical will all feel at home in the presence of these fine spiny figures. The many-stemmed amalgam at right might be mandacaru, a columnar night-blooming cactus with large, white, fragrant flowers. In the middle is what looks like resin spurge, a Moroccan native that’s actually a shrub. And is that opuntia on the left? While these three selections exhibit a wide, wonderful range of qualities, colors, and textures, the legs Ross has chosen for each of them are strikingly similar. The skin tone, the pop of the right knee, the pair of feet in a sort of subtle first position—they’re super synchronized, grounding the image and giving these diverse species a visually unifying factor. The legs are also an unexpected (and exceedingly delightful) source of contrast. Smooth, shapely, feminine, in an easy-going, passive pose, they are in many ways the opposite of the cacti’s sharp points, colorful appearance, and in-your-face exuberance ...
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