Career
Exhibiting regularly since the mid-1980s, Cross came to mainstream public attention with her first major solo installation, 'Ebb', at the Douglas Hyde Gallery in Dublin, Ireland.[1] This was followed, in 1991, by 'Powerhouse', at the ICA in Philadelphia, the Hyde Gallery and Camden Arts Centre in London and Kerlin Gallery in Dublin. Like 'Ebb', several of the component parts that made up 'Powerhouse' were 'found' objects - many of which had been in her family's possession for years or were located from different environments. These were then incorporated into mixed media pieces for exhibit. Cross's general approach of creating works using found objects has been referred to as "poetic amalgamation".[3]
During the early 1990s, Cross witnessed a traditional sieve created from stretched cow's udder at a local museum in Norway and stated, "Seeing that a cow could be used for something other than producing milk was a total revelation."[4] In response, she began producing sculptural works, utilising cured cowhide, cow udders and stuffed snakes, which explored the cultural and symbolic significance of sexuality and subjectivity across cultures.[1] For Cross, the use of udders generated a strange mixture of disgust, hilarity, and excitement. Virgin Shroud (1993), for example, is a veil made from a cow skin, with the udders forming a crown for the concealed figure; it references both the Virgin Mary and Meret Oppenheim's fur-lined teacup that was a partial inspiration for the piece.[4] Saddle (also 1993) incorporates an upturned udder into the seat of a horse's saddle.[citation needed]
Cross is perhaps best known for her public installation Ghost Ship (1998) in which a disused light ship was illuminated through use of luminous paint, in Scotman's Bay, off Dublin's Dún Laoghaire Harbour.[1] A recent series, Medusae, includes images of Chironex fleckeri, a type of jellyfish and was made in collaboration with her brother Tom.[citation needed]
The Irish Museum of Modern Art held a major retrospective of her work in 2005.[citation needed]
An exhibition, 'View', that took place between September and November 2014 at the Kerlin Gallery in Dublin, Ireland, included a series of new sculptures and photographs. The works, which are exemplary of the artist's complex exploration of the connection between humans and the natural world, and that play with material, relationship and time, capture the artist's ongoing compulsion to agitate possibilities for new perspectives and points of view.[5]
Cross was selected to be part of the curated 'Indra's Net' programme at the 2022 Frieze Art Fair in London.[6]
