Mark Cross

The depiction of water has always been a part of my painting to varying degrees and in one form or another. In the last decade however, water has been the main focus with up to 95% of the canvas being taken up by water in some paintings in an attempt to lead the viewer into the universal qualities and life-force of water. On one level this incorporates the recognition of the dire threats to water in its many aspects, from drinking water to the vast Pacific Ocean. On another level, I never tire of the mesmerising qualities of water which is especially influenced by my where we are gifted with water which is the clearest in the world. Because of this clarity all the various layers, the refraction, the water caustics caused by the sun streaming onto the shallows and the reflections from the sky or objects above the water plain all interact into something beyond three dimensions. It is a wonderful challenge to try to capture this on a two dimensional surface.

Born in Auckland in 1955, Mark Cross began making art during his mid teens. At the age of 23 he moved with his family to his wife’s village, Liku, on the island of Niue and it was during these early years that a strong philosophic and stylistic foundation was established for his career as an Artist. There was disillusionment with the institutional oriented nature of the art scene in New Zealand and the isolation provided both the inspiration and lack of distraction needed to develop his work in an individualistic way. Having achieved this he returned to New Zealand in 1982 in order to find a market for his work and since then he has developed a reputation as one of the South Pacific’s leading realist Artists. Cross now divides his time between studios in Niue and New Zealand and although the work is very specific in it’s detail, reference to these countries is restricted to the use of local elements for the creation of a timeless, lateral world where his figures act out and question the foibles of humanity but never try to proffer answers.The linear perspective of history has been replaced by a cyclical understanding of time, an understanding that the Artist has achieved by his closeness to nature while in Niue. Cross’s figures are totally integrated with the landscape and there’s never a feeling that nature is dominated by human kind. This is the basis of a complex philosophy that the Artist transfers into his images and in their ethereal, visionary way the works warn of the dire ecological imperatives that face both a small island and a planet. Mark Cross has achieved through his work a uniqueness that avoids the trappings of regionalism, so often associated with realism, and replaces them with an acutely perceptive worldview. During the nineties however the artist has ventured into other areas of art production with the establishment of a sculpture park in the rain forest in the east of Niue. His paintings however are his main focus and are to be found in many private and corporate collections in Australasia, Asia, America and Europe.