Sandra Cross’s installations are concerned with the role of boundaries in shaping thought. Her work draws on concepts of being and presence in contemporary philosophy. She has used the form of the screen of Islamic architecture in her earliest works, as a mechanism that allows vision and disrupts it, and both joins and separates the spaces between which it is placed. Cross’s work is process-based. She constructs a fabric from paper and cloth, with beeswax the “glue” which transforms these layers into a cohesive whole of translucent material. She uses text and pattern in her work, cutting into or embedding drawings and writing in the fabric itself.
Education
1993 University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
Bachelor of Visual Arts in Sculpture
1990 Seaforth TAFE, Sydney, Sydney, Australia
Associate Diploma in Fine Arts in Photography
Awards
2005 Honorarium, American University Cairo, Cairo, Egypt
2000 Artist Grant, Australian Consulate-General, Shanghai, China
Solo Exhibitions
2007 between – Adelaide Central Gallery, Adelaide , Australia
2007 passage II – CACSA Project Space, Adelaide, Australia
2005 passage – Townhouse Gallery of Contemporary Art, Townhouse-on-Site,
Cairo, Egypt
Recent Work – Falaki Gallery, American University Cairo, Cairo, Egypt
2003 insideoutside – Soapbox Gallery, Brisbane, Australia
insideoutside – Gallery 4A, Sydney, Australia
2001 fold – Rohtas Gallery, Islamabad, Pakistan
1998 Sandra Cross – National College of Art Gallery, Lahore, Pakistan
seven veils – Rohtas Gallery, Islamabad, Pakistan
1997 Sandra Cross – Rohtas Gallery, Islamabad, Pakistan
1994 screen – Pendulum Gallery, Sydney, Australia
Selected Group Exhibitions
2008 Works on Paper – Adelaide Central Gallery. Adelaide, Australia
2007 Linden Postcard Show– Linden Gallery, St Kilda Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, Australia
2006 Southern Cross University Acquisitive Artists’ Book Award – Next Art Gallery, Southern Cross University, Lismore, Australia
2005 Form through Light – Cairo Opera House, Cairo, Egypt
re-investigating vision – The Townhouse Gallery of Contemporary Art, Townhouse- on-site, Cairo, Egypt
2004 investigating vision – Fifth Floor Gallery, American University Cairo, Cairo, Egypt
2002 Member’s Exhibition – Gallery 4A, Sydney, Australia
2000 semi-transparent – Eastlink Gallery, Shanghai, China
1999 Foreign Artist’s Exhibition – ShanghART Gallery, Shanghai
4 + 4 – Shanghai College of Fine Arts, Shanghai, China
last 5 minutes – Eastlink Gallery, Shanghai, China
1998 Sandra Cross & Louise Soloway – Park 97, Shanghai, China
1996 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = - Ardt Gallery, Sydney, Australia
1995 untitled – The Performance Space, Sydney, Australia
hsoyndg knoenyg – The Fringe Club Gallery, Hong Kong, China
Related projects/Lectures
Visiting artist wax workshop, Townhouse Gallery of Contemporary Art, Cairo, Egypt, March 2005
Visiting artist lecture Falaki Gallery, The American University Cairo, Cairo, Egypt, March 2005
Visiting artist wax workshop, The American University Cairo, Cairo, Egypt, December 2004
Visiting artist sculpture workshop, Indus Valley School of Art & Architecture, Karachi, Pakistan, May 1998
Visiting artist sculpture workshop, National College of Art, Lahore, Pakistan, March 1998
Reviews and publications
2007 Louise Russell, Abstract with random cod, Eastern Courier, 27 June
2005 Lina Atallah, Sandra Cross waxes lyrical, Daily Star (subsidiary of The New York Times), 25 May
2003 Rachel Langford, Courier Mail, 22 April
2001 Shahina Maqbool, Sandra Cross explores uncharted territory of clouds, The News, 4 March
1997 Aasim Akhtar, Behind the screen, The News, 10 January
