Dorothy Cross studied at the Crawford Municipal School of Art, then continued her studies at Leicester Polytechnic in England. She completed her training with three years at the San Francisco Art Institute in California, where she acquired a strong mastery of graphic arts. Returning to Ireland, first to Dublin and then to Connemara, since the mid-1980s she has developed a multidisciplinary body of work combining sculpture, photography, video, and installation. She reinterprets places and materials to create new metaphorical associations, exploring contemporary sexual and religious mores as well as constructions of identity.
Certainly one of Ireland’s leading artists since the mid-1980s, Dorothy Cross is widely recognized and exhibited internationally. Her notable works include the Udder series (1990-1994) with Virgin Shroud and Saddle, as well as the installations Ebb at the Douglas Hyde Gallery in Dublin and PowerHouse presented at the ICA in Philadelphia, the Camden Arts Centre in London, and the Kerlin Gallery in Dublin. She is also known for her public installation Ghost Ship (1998) in Dun Laoghaire Bay in Dublin. A recipient of the prestigious Pollock-Krasner Award and an honorary doctorate from University College Cork, she is exhibiting her monumental work BED at the Château de Vullierens. Her works, present in numerous public and private collections, are recognized for their poetic and conceptual power.
Dorothy Cross draws inspiration from the animal world (sharks, jellyfish, cows, crabs, birds, snakes) to question gender, masculinity, femininity, as well as power, dependence, and fertility. She transforms everyday objects and materials into visual metaphors, blending humor, strangeness, and poetry to explore social behaviors and cultural constructions of identity. Mastering sculpture, photography, video, and installation art, her recurring works explore sexual and cultural identity, memory, and the gap between the conscious and subconscious.