Dorothy Cross: Damascus Rose

Frith Street Gallery is delighted to announce an exhibition of new works by Dorothy Cross. The works in this show mostly originate in and are inspired by her time working at the celebrated stone masons’ yards and studios in Carrara, Italy, a region of Tuscany famous for its fine marble. 

The works are primarily made from a marble known as Damascus Rose, distinctive for its flesh-like hue, which Cross found in the stores in Carrara. The particular piece of marble she came across hails from Syria. This immediately evoked the biblical story of the Road to Damascus and the miracle of the enlightenment of St Paul who was blinded and had his vision restored, as well as the present violent upheaval in Syria, and elsewhere, with the horror of human evacuation and the thwarted attempts by thousands forced to migrate across oceans to supposedly safer lands.

These five framed photographs document the making of Red Erratic and Red Road at Studio Carlo Nicoli in Carrara, Italy. The exhibition will also include a video by Eoin McLoughlin documenting the carving of the work in the historic studio.

‘When entering such marble one is never sure what will be found. Crystalline seams can occur and make it impossible to carve. Veins of startling colours can emerge, deep red to pale pink.’

 

Dorothy Cross

Red Baby is a touching sculpture of a pillow carved from a small block of Damascus Rose. With an ear nestling at the centre where a head would leave an impression, the work is based on Cross’s own childhood pillow that has been replicated in stone by the traditional carving system of points, using calipers to indicate the sculptural topography. When working with Damascus Rose marble one is never sure what will be found – crystalline seams can occur that make it impossible to carve, but veins of startling colours also emerge ranging from deep red to pale pink. In this case the veins run towards the ear presenting what seems like a pulsating body of stone.

On a larger pillow titled Red Rest, crystal ‘nests’ are located like fissures, adding a particularly beautiful geological essence to the work whilst the rich, visceral hue and its polished finish evokes the interior of the body. The intricate and intimate beauty of both Red Baby and Red Rest recalls a funerary monument and invites meditation on the fragility of earthly existence. This mood is subverted by the introduction of an abject body part to suggest rather a modern-day relic or fetish object. Hybrid, uncanny objects have featured prominently throughout Cross’s oeuvre. Using sensuous materials, she often splices together plants and animals with body parts: a finger with a crab, in silver, or a foxglove plant, in bronze.

‘To begin to with something familiar is always a good way of making any of us who come and see a piece of work relax or identify and then you can pull the rug from under their feet, or you can shift them possibly to turn somersaults to look at something in a different way.'

 Dorothy Cross