Susan Cross
Fundamental to my practice is drawing: whether this is explored in a two-dimensional way or extended and developed through collage and models. This highly creative layer of activity provides a great sense of playfulness and ensures I believe a continued freshness of approach.
Ideas are distilled over time: bot though drawing, material exploration and a constant reflective process. Quite often it is the essence of a particular intangible quality, a noted texture of linear structure that provides the starting points for translation.
Materials are handled intuitively through the making process; the piece and I respond to the inherent properties of the medium that can also dictate method and form. Gold and silver provide the basis from which to explore ideas whilst combining and contrasting textile related materials offer spontaneity, colour and a great freedom of expression. Silver is often oxidised black likening it to the drawn graphite or inky line.
Born 1964 Ledbury, England
Education
1989 Workshop in Edinburgh
1986-89 Workshop in London
1982-86 Middlesex Polytechnic
BA (Hons) Jewellery (class 1)
1980-82 Herefordshire College of Art & Design
Diploma in General Art & Design (distinction)
Recent exhibitions
2009 Collect, Saatchi Galleries, London. Represented by electrum Gallery
Jewelery – What is it all about? Electrum Gallery, London
2008 Collect, V&A. Represented by the Scottish Gallery
2007 Jerwood Applied Arts Award, Jewellery. Jerwood Space, London
Process Works, London Metropolitan University 2006 Goldmark, Thomas Goode, London
2005 Pensieri Preziosi 2 gioielle senza confine, Padova, Italy
Interface, exhibition of International Contemporary Art Textile
The Scottish Gallery and Ruthin Crafts Centre, N. Wales
2004 ….Or gold, Gallery Flow, London & touring
L’Or, Bijoux D Europe. France & touring
Collect, V&A, London
2003 Jewellery meets Textiles, Contemporary Applied Arts, London
Schmuck, Munich, Germany
2002 Six Colourways, Blackwell House, Cumbria
2001 100% Proof, a distillation of new work in Jewellery and Silversmithing form Scotland, UK & USA
Susan Cross – New Work, solo show. The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh
Collections
Crafts Council
Victoria and Albert Museum
Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery
Worshipful Company of Goldsmith’s
National Museums of Scotland
Recent Awards
2008 Honorary Fellow, Hereford College of Arts
Appointed Reader, Edinburgh College of Art
2007 Jerwood prize
2001 Inches Carr Trust Bursary
1999 Scottish Arts Council travel grant to visit Japan