Kerlin Gallery is proud to present Veins of Other **by Dorothy Cross. **

At the heart of the exhibition is an ambitious new sculptural commission titled Tread, in which human feet are hand-carved into twelve blocks of different coloured marbles from locations around the world. Formed by dramatic shifts in heat and pressure, each stone tells the material history of its geographic terrain through distinct surface textures and hues, from the pure white of Carrara Statuario to deep Travertine Red or Chinese Green. Emerging from them like fossils, the carved feet appear as proof of existence, a trace left after the passing step of a human. Coming together as a group of twelve, a number with great significance as a marker of time, they appear like a summoning from deep in the past, a polyphonic history of the earth and a reflection on the place of human beings within this vast chronicle.

Veins of Other also presents Cross's new Bloodlines series, unique works layering photographs from the artist's personal archive

with hand-poured red veined glass. Taken by Cross's father, the antique photographs reveal an inherited fascination with the sea, capturing the Fastnet lighthouse from the deck of a boat, or the lightship once used to mark the position of Daunt Rock. In one diptych, the artist's mother and father look outwards through binoculars and windows, their vistas obscured by blood-red streaks of glass, swirling patterns that recall the strata of rocks. A series of moments preserved in time, Bloodlines places the fragility of human life in contrast with the vast and enduring power of nature and time.

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 from 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.

Press release courtesy Kerlin Gallery