Introduction to Linda Cross

Introduction to Linda Cross

Originally written for the catalog, Linda Cross, Recent Work, Olana Group, San Antonio, TX

Henry Miller, who made his fame as a writer but found his greatest joy as a painter, once said, “One’s destination is never a place but a new way of looking at things.”

Linda Cross’s visceral sense of place - accrued over a lifetime of making art in New Mexico, Mexico, Maine, New York City, and now the Hudson River Valley - not only engendered her life’s work, but also evolved a new way of looking at things for both artist and viewer.

Cross is not interested in recreating the world, but rather interpolating, abstracting, reforming, and even preserving it. Like one of her favorite painters, Edouard Manet, Cross begins to break down the viewer’s expectations of what should be seen by first deconstructing traditional form and then interweaving the real with the abstract and sometimes even the surprising.

Cross does not idealize nature. In fact, she frequently records the infringement of man upon the natural world, capturing its often precarious yet sometimes surprisingly beautiful balance. Equilibrium in her work is attained in much the same way it is in nature - through layer upon accumulated layer of the interaction between the accidental and the transcendental, between the discarded debris of mankind and the just plain gorgeousness of this planet.

As a result, the viewer is encouraged to interact with her pieces on a number of levels - to resonate, to deconstruct, to unearth, to question, and sometimes simply to enjoy.

The work of Linda Cross is a profound reflection of this time in history - a time when our sense of place has been radically altered by what we are doing to our environment, and yet a time when our reverence for nature has perhaps never been greater. As such, the art of Linda Cross forms a striking and necessary record of how we have lived for generations to come.