Marc O'Sullivan: Dorothy Cross is an artist who alters how we see the world

A long-time member of Aosdána, she has had large scale solo exhibitions at the Irish Museum of Modern Art and the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin

Dorothy Cross and her dog Connie. Picture: Patrick Cross

Dorothy Cross is a native of Cork who now lives and works in Connemara. Her work as an artist is often inspired by the natural world, and incorporates objects such as bones and taxidermied sharks and birds. 

She is perhaps best known for a series of works made from cowhides and udders. These include figurative pieces such as Virgin Shroud and Amazon, but also a saddle, a rugby ball and a pair of stilettos, all of which feature cow’s teats. The series was inspired by a domestic sieve fashioned from a cow’s udders she encountered in a museum in Norway in the 1980s.