Ross Bleckner is a painter whose work has from early on addressed mortality, memory, and impermanence, not through explicit narrative but rather abstraction, light, colour, and the evocation of organic forms. 'Used to Be' engages with loss and the idea of change: what was, what no longer is. The phrase itself suggests nostalgia, erasure, a before and after. In multiple versions, Bleckner explores variation: how the same formal motif shifts under different colour, light, scale, or texture. Bleckner often uses luminosity over dark grounds, or conversely uses light as a mediating presence rising from or through shadows. The layering of pigment and subtle edits makes the viewer aware of time in its making and its viewing.

These works reflect Bleckner’s continued attempt to materialise impermanence, what remains, what fades, what light lingers.

In 2025, Galleria Mazzoli Editore published 'Outside Our Window: The Recent Paintings of Ross Bleckner, 2018-2025', a publication surveying the artist's practice.