John Cross (°1953, Shreveport, United States) is an artist who works in a variety of media. With a conceptual approach, Cross creates with daily, recognizable elements, an unprecedented situation in which the viewer is confronted with the conditioning of his own perception and has to reconsider his biased position. His works question the conditions of appearance of an image in the context of contemporary visual culture in which representations and ideas normally function.
His artworks directly respond to the surrounding environment and uses everyday experiences from the artist as a starting point. Often these are framed instances that would go unnoticed in their original context. By reflecting an objective truth and global cultural narratives, he tries to increase the dynamic between audience and author by investigating the duality that develops through different interpretations.
With the use of appropriated materials and mixed media, which are borrowed and manipulated from a day-to-day context, he presents everyday objects as well as references to texts and current events. His works feature coincidental, accidental, and unexpected connections which make it possible to revise art history and, even better, to complement it. Combining unrelated aspects lead to surprising analogies.
His work urges us to renegotiate art as being part of a reactive or – at times – autistic medium, commenting on oppressing themes in our contemporary society. By examining the ambiguity and origination via retakes and variations, he tries to approach a wide scale of subjects in a multi-layered way that involves the viewer in a way that is sometimes visceral and manifests the idea of function following form in a work.
He creates situations in which everyday objects are altered or detached from their natural function. By applying specific combinations and certain manipulations, different functions and/or contexts are created. John Cross currently lives and works in Saint Augustine.
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