Press Release: Dorothy Cross

05.15.96

THE INTERNATIONAL ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE PROGRAM

NEW WORKS: 96.2

Dorothy Cross - DUBLIN, IRELAND

Lewis deSoto - SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

Alex de Leon - SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

Exhibition: June 7 - July 14

The International Artist-in-Residence Program sponsored by ArtPace, A Foundation
for Contemporary Art | San Antonio presents the sixth in a series of New Works projects
realized by artists living and working at ArtPace. Dorothy Cross, Lewis deSoto and Alex
de Leon were selected to participate in the program by a renowned panel of arts
professionals brought together by The Foundation in October of 1994. Members of the
panel were: Mary Beebe, Director of the Stuart Collection, The University of California,
San Diego; Benito Huerta, Artist, Houston, Texas; Anthony Jones, Rector and Vice
Provost, Royal College of Art, London; Richard Koshalek, Director, Museum of
Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Lowery Sims, Curator 20th Century Art, New York;
and Dianne Vanderlip, Curator of 20th Century Art, Denver Art Museum.

Dorothy Cross

At the center of Dorothy Cross's installation Cry is a large walk-in freezer
containing ice-encrusted snakes. Although earlier works have utilized cow udders, many
of Cross's recent pieces use snakes as "symbols of temptation and betrayal," as well as
powerful evocations of beauty and fear. In Cry, visitors are encouraged to enter
the freezer--alone--and close the door behind them. The emotional tone of the installation
is set by a sheer curtain printed with an apocalyptic landscape, The Opening of the
Sixth Seal, by the nineteenth century Irish painter Francis Danby. Other elements
include a shiny firefighter's hood (one of the first new and unused objects the artist has
ever employed in her works) and a mysterious hole dug through the cement floor at
ArtPace. The hole, heat-resistant hood with its golden mask, and burning landscape offset
the steely precision of the installation and the icy chill of the freezer to invoke extreme
polarities of temperatures as well as emotions. Dorothy Cross was born in Cork, Ireland,
in 1956, and lives in Dublin. She studied at the Crawford Municipal School of Art in
Cork and Leicester Polytechnic in England. She received her M.F.A. from the San
Francisco Art Institute in 1982. Cross's solo exhibitions include Power House at
the I.C.A. in Philadelphia in 1991, and Parthenon at the Camden Arts Centre in
London in 1993. Her work is currently the subject of a major touring exhibition and
catalogue, even, organized by Arnolfini in Bristol, England. One of the best
known artists working in Ireland today, Cross investigates the mythic concerns with life
and death that unite us all.

445 North Main Avenue San Antonio TX 78205 t 210 212 4900 f 210 212 4990 www.artpace.org