Peta Cross

The works create a living presence which is startling in its silent solemnity and its sense of ghostly intensity that the depicted animals and plant life evoke.

The subjects of the natural world have been drawn largely from the artist’s direct observation of the taxidermy collection at the Melbourne Museum and a taxidermy workshop in Thomastown, and include a galapogos tortoise, a tamarind monkey skeleton and a snow leopard taken from the hills of the Himalayas.

Cross’ work incorporates the painterly traditions of history – direct observation and the use of thin layers of rich umber oil glaze – with themes of displacement, the effects of colonisation, and the subjugation of animal and plant life in the face of modernity.