President of Ireland Catherine Connolly presided at a ceremony at the Arts Council today to mark the election of visual artist Dorothy Cross as Saoi of Aosdána.
The honour of Saoi is bestowed for singular and sustained distinction in the arts and, this morning, the President presented Ms Cross with the symbol of the office, a gold Torc. The ceremony took place at the Arts Council’s offices at 70 Merrion Square, Dublin 2.
President Catherine Connolly said:
“As President of Ireland, I am delighted to present Dorothy Cross with the Golden Torc, the symbol of Saoi of Aosdana, reflecting a lifetime of outstanding creative work and the esteem in which she is held by her artistic peers. I congratulate her on being chosen for this well-deserved honour and, on behalf of the people of Ireland, I thank her for her artistry.”
Maura McGrath, Chair of the Arts Council said:
“To date there have been 22 Saoithe, and today, I am delighted to announce that Dorothy Cross’s election brings that number to 23. Dorothy Cross is the eighth Saoi in the discipline of visual art, proving her rich and invaluable contributions to the arts in Ireland.”
The current Saoithe are Roger Doyle (music) elected 2019; Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin (literature) elected 2022; Paul Muldoon (literature) elected 2024. The election of Dorothy Cross as Saoi brings the total to 4 Saoithe. Members of Aosdána nominate and elect the Saoithe and no more than seven members may hold this honour at any one time.
The ceremony was attended by many of the artist’s colleagues, family and friends. Also present were Arts Council Director, Moling Ryan; Arts Council Chair, Maura McGrath and Toscaireacht Chair, Cecily Brennan.
About Dorothy Cross
Born in Cork in 1956 Dorothy Cross received a BA from Leicester Polytechnic, England in 1979 and an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, California in 1982.
Dorothy Cross’s work moves from sculpture to video and photography. Her best known works include the Udder series: sculptures using cow udders, from 1992 – 1994 and the Ghostship that was moored in Dublin Bay in 1999. One of her works Virgin Shroud is in the collection of Tate Modern in London. She has represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale (1992) and the Istanbul Biennale (1997). In 2002 Dorothy Cross worked with her brother, Professor of Zoology Tom Cross on Medusae a film about jellyfish. In 2004 she produced the Pergolesi Stabat Mater in conjunction with Opera Theatre Company in the slate quarry on Valentia Island. In the Summer of 2005 the Irish Museum of Modern Art held a retrospective show of her work.
Dorothy Cross is represented by the Kerlin Gallery in Dublin, and Frith Street Gallery in London.
Working in sculpture, film and photography, Dorothy Cross examines the relationship between living beings and the natural world. Living in Connemara, a rural area on Ireland’s west coast, the artist sees nature, the ocean and the body as sites of constant change and flux. Her works harness this fluidity and generative power, staging unexpected encounters between plants, animals, body parts and everyday objects, resulting in strange, hybrid forms that range from the lyrical, sublime and meditative, to the erotic, humorous and playful. Her sculptures might incorporate classical materials such as Carrara marble, cast bronze or gold leaf alongside discarded antiques, old boats, washed-up jellyfish, whale bones or animal skins found on the shore. Treating these materials with equal reverence, Cross honours the legacy of art history but also the geological and ecological histories that far predate it, reflecting upon our place within the environment. Her works also draw upon a rich store of symbolic associations across cultures to investigate the construction of religious, social and sexual mores, subjectivity, memory and vulnerability.