My Work and Research from 1994 to Present

The poetry of earth is never dead :-) John Keats

 

I study the landscape as representative of ritual, celebration and memory through the use of site-sensitive three-dimensional ephemeral art works in ice. Using water as a metaphor for Life-Death.

Water is a basic need, as transitory as life and the sound of melting ice, our most precious resource from irrigation to germination. Cleansing, healing and washing away the sins of the world from battle fields of the past to the present day. Each landscape has its own feeling, energy, aroma and colour other than the geographical or climatic.

I work with past echoes and collected histories to produce a durational site-specific art work in ice. This too will pass returning to the elements. Learn to let go, free your soul for we are star dust returning.

I welcome work with Archaeologists, Anthropologists and Scientists in order to understand our earthly duration and celebrate the eternal Elemental Spirit.

Principal at Dartington College of Arts professor Kevin Thompson; "Heather's work is both immediate and accessible, yet underpinned by sound scholarship and contextual enquiry. We are delighted by her continuing success."

Heather Keir Cross is available for commissions and bookings for slide talks. Spring 1997: I was invited to create an installation for The Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall, using the history of the gardens. In the Autumn of 1998 I produced six large scale figures representing the gardeners who worked the gardens prior to 1914-18 war.

Linking the medium of frozen water to the gardens frozen in time. The figures in working poses were placed around the gardens, melting away by the light of the moon. The work was filmed by channel 4 and has been used in and on the cover of Tim Smit's book ; "Secrets Locked in Silence"

Spring 1999; I produced twelve ice Standing-Stones for the Summer exhibition organised by The Ship of Fools Art Group. Entitled in The Path of the shadow, this event was to raise artistic awareness and gain publicity for local sculptors and artists. Posters were produced and my "Standing-Stones" advertised one of the largest exhibitions ever held in Cornwall. The site was Geevor Tin Mine, Pendeen, St Just Cornwall. I produced a time-based piece of work which was both sensitive to the mine site and tribute to the miners.

As the Standing-Stones melted I recorded the shadows cast representing the fleeting impression man made on the landscape, which will in time heal. The Standing-Stones could also be read as a clock face or tomb stones.

Spring 2000 Currently working with lectures from Falmouth College of Art, Dartington College of Arts and a team of Archaeologists and Anthropologists from University College London please see website

"Nothing but a moment of the past? Much more perhaps; something which being common to the past and present is more essential than both" (Marcel Proust)

 

With sincere Thanks to

The First class library Staff at Dartington College Of Art with special thanks to Mark Groves for excellent design of this Web Site.

Email Me :heatherkeircross@hotmail.com

Please click on images