Working in sculpture, film and photography, Dorothy Cross examines the relationship between living beings and the natural world. Living in Connemara, a rural area on Ireland’s west coast, the artist sees nature, the ocean and the body as sites of constant change and flux. Her works harness this fluidity and generative power, staging unexpected encounters between plants, animals, body parts and everyday objects, resulting in strange, hybrid forms that range from the lyrical, sublime and meditative, to the erotic, humorous and playful. Her sculptures might incorporate classical materials such as Carrara marble, cast bronze or gold leaf alongside discarded antiques, old boats, washed-up jellyfish, whale bones or animal skins found on the shore. Treating these materials with equal reverence, Cross honours the legacy of art history but also the geological and ecological histories that far predate it, reflecting upon our place within the environment. Her works also draw upon a rich store of symbolic associations across cultures to investigate the construction of religious, social and sexual mores, subjectivity, memory and vulnerability.
Dorothy Cross lives and works in Connemara.
Generations, 2022
Statuario Marble
66 x 60 x 40 cm / 26 x 23.6 x 15.7 in
Dorothy Cross
Generations, 2022
Statuario Marble, hand carved
66 x 60 x 40 cm / 26 x 23.6 x 15.7 in
Dorothy Cross
Branch, 2017
cast bronze branch and three polished bronze eggs
20 x 203 x 15 cm / 7.9 x 79.9 x 5.9 in
Dorothy Cross
Foxglove, 2024
cast bronze
125 x 58 x 43 cm / 49.2 x 22.8 x 16.9 in
39 x 79.5 x 64.5 cm / 15.4 x 31.3 x 25.4 in plinth
Dorothy Cross
Everest Erratic, 2019
Carrara marble
172 x 136 x 243 cm / 67.7 x 53.5 x 95.7 in
Dorothy Cross
Fingertip Pearl, 2011
Hand bones and fingertip overgrown with black-lipped oyster nacre
22 x 16 x 2 cm / 8.7 x 6.3 x .8 in
Dorothy Cross
Damascus Pillow, 2021
Damascus rose marble
12 x 52.5 x 42.3 cm / 4.7 x 20.7 x 16.7 in
Dorothy Cross
Hand and Foot, 2017
cast bronze, alabaster and steel wire
alabaster disc: 50 cm / 19.7 in diameter, height variable
Dorothy Cross
Everest Floor, 2017
Carrara marble
200 x 320 cm / 78.7 x 126 in
photo: Jason Wyche
Dorothy Cross
Arms, 1996 – 2017
cast bronze, gilded 24 carat gold
16 x 80 x 9 cm / 6.3 x 31.5 x 3.5 in each
Collection of The Tia Collection
Dorothy Cross
Eye of Shark, 2014
9 cast iron baths, marble panel, shark eye and display box, amber glass, dimensions variable
Installation at Lismore Castle Arts, Waterford
Dorothy Cross
Overlap (Merge), 1991
archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308
edition of 4 + 2 AP
81 x 61 cm / 31.9 x 24 in image size
95 x 76 cm / 37.4 x 29.9 in framed size
Dorothy Cross
Whale, 2011
Cuvier whale skeleton, cord, wood, rusted bucket and marble plinth
700 cm / 275.6 in
Installation view at Turner Contemporary. Photo: Stephen White
Dorothy Cross
Lover Snakes, 1995
stuffed snakes and cast silver reliquaries containing snake hearts
37 x 14 cm / 14.6 x 5.5 in
Collection of Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin
Dorothy Cross
Virgin Shroud, 1993
cow hide, satin train, steel structure
201 x 81 x 120 cm / 79.1 x 31.9 x 47.2 in
Collection of TATE, London
Bible, 1995
Dorothy Cross has exhibited in museums including Tate; MoMA PS1; ACCA, Melbourne; ICA, Philadelphia; Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio; the National Gallery of Ireland; the Irish Museum of Modern Art; The Hugh Lane Gallery; the Douglas Hyde Gallery; the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin; Crawford Art Gallery, Cork; Modern Art Oxford; Turner Contemporary, Margate; the Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol; Herbert Art Gallery, Coventry; Camden Arts Centre, London; and Fries Museum, The Netherlands. Cross is currently working on an ongoing project titled KINSHIP, a ritualised journey returning a mummified body from Ireland to Egypt. Forthcoming exhibitions include Kerlin Gallery (Solo, 2024); Bath Abbey (Group, May 2024); On Art and Motherhood, Hayward Touring (March 2024); A Matter of Time, Crawford Art Gallery (Group, February 2024). The artist has recently had work included in The Recent, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh; Reimag(in)ing the Victorians, Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham; Following Threads, Crawford Art Gallery, Cork; Her Back to the World, The Model, Sligo; Healing Ruins, Cinili Hamam, Istanbul; The Art of Sport, Butler Gallery, Kilkenny; It Took a Century, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin; Total Recall, Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate (all 2023); Tangible/Nothing, Ruby City, San Antonio, Texas; girls, girls, girls, curated by Simone Rocha, Lismore Castle Arts, Ireland; Performing PAC: Take Me to the Place I Love, PAC Milano; Bones in the Attic, The Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin (all 2022). Cross has participated in the Venice, Istanbul and Liverpool biennales.
Mollusc, 2012
Dorothy Cross
Desire: A Revision From The 20th Century To The Digital Age, 2019-20
Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland
Dorothy Cross
Glance, 2017
New Art Centre, Roche Court, Salisbury, UK
Dorothy Cross
Riddle of the Burial Ground, 2016
Extra City Kunsthal, Antwerp, Belgium
Dorothy Cross
Eye of Shark, 2014
Lismore Castle Arts, Co. Waterford, Ireland
Dorothy Cross
Connemara, 2013
Turner Contemporary, Margate, Kent, UK
Dorothy Cross
Gravity, 2011
Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, Ireland
The Works presents a five-part series in which John Kelly meets five women in Irish culture. In this second episode John meets artist, Dorothy Cross. In conversation with John, Dorothy explains how nature nurtures her and how she has always wanted to live by the sea. Dorothy is someone who cherishes our native landscapes and all the life they hold. Her works bring nature very much into our cultural life.
Working from a remote studio on the west coast of Ireland, Cross often uses the remains of dead animals or other found natural materials in her sculptures. In this film she talks about transforming shark skins by coating them in gold and casting them in bronze, and how the coastal landscape around her inspires and feeds her art.
From 5 October 2013 - 5 January 2014 Turner Contemporary presents Dorothy Cross: Connemara. Here the artist talks about her work, the exhibition, her home Connemara, on the wild west coast of Ireland, and the connection with Margate's coastal location.
TEDxDublin was hosted by Science Gallery at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre on September 8th, 2012.
Dorothy Cross explains how she made ‘Virgin Shroud’, by stitching together a cow-hide, complete with udders, and her grandmother’s old wedding dress. The extraordinary sculpture that resulted is a favourite in Tate’s Collection.
Dorothy Cross and Kathy Prendergast are both in A Matter of Time, a major group exhibition at Crawford Art Gallery, Cork from 17 February – 3 June 2024.
Dorothy Cross is in the curated group exhibition Faszination Höhle or Fascination of Caves at the Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, Bremen.
Dorothy Cross is exhibiting as part of The Recent at Talbot Rice Gallery, University of Edinburgh. The Recent takes us into a conceptual world of geological, evolutionary, human and environmental time, exploring what art can do to stretch the human imagination, and situate our actions and impact in a deeper, future-oriented timeframe.
Work by Dorothy Cross will be included in Reimag(in)ing the Victorians, an exhibition curated by art historian Isobel Elstob at Djangoly Gallery, Nottingham.
Works by Dorothy Cross, Ailbhe Ní Bhriain, and Isabel Nolan are included in Following Threads, an exhibition of textile-based work at Crawford Art Gallery, Cork.
Dorothy Cross's iconic 1993 sculpture Udder Chair will be included in RHA West, an exhibition celebrating the 200th anniversary of the RHA.
Andy Fitz and Dorothy Cross are both included in The Art of Sport at Butler Gallery, Kilkenny. Curated by Anna O'Sullivan.
Kinship is the act of returning a mummified body of a man to Egypt. It follows in a line of large-scale projects created by Dorothy Cross over the past three decades.
Ruby City's Tangible/Nothing is a new installation of its permanent collection galleries, featuring approximately 40 works by national and international artists including Dorothy Cross.
Work by Dorothy Cross is included in PAC Milano’s exhibition PERFORMING PAC: Take me to the place I love.
Crossing is a visual retrospective spanning over 35 years of work by artist Dorothy Cross, published by Dürer Editions.
Dorothy Cross and Aleana Egan feature work in 'The Museum of Ancient History', a site-responsive exhibition that places artworks by six contemporary artists in dialogue with a collection of ancient artefacts from the Classical world.
