ABOUT
Wendy Cross has exhibited her paintings throughout the United States for over thirty years. Born and raised in Connecticut, she was inspired to paint and draw by her grandmother who was also a painter. Her earliest influences were from children's picture books by such illustrators as P.D. Eastman, Clement Hurd, Dr. Seuss, and Garth Williams. She was later enamored by the highly detailed, representational paintings of Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte, Yves Tanguy, and Peter Bloom.
In 1989 Wendy earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. She studied Primitive painters such as Henri Rousseau and Fergus Hall, and the Regionalists Thomas Hart Benton, John Steaurt Curry, and Grant Wood. Primarily painting landscapes, she depicted the American West after traveling to Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona in the summer of 1995. Her subject matter became more and more focused on the socioeconomic disenfranchisement she observed in the Midwest as factories and storefronts were shuttered due to de-industrialization and retail consolidation. She continued to explore this theme in New England, moving back to Connecticut in 2007, by documenting factory ruins and economic disparity in local communities.
Wendy Returned to the Midwest in 2013. In 2015 she received an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award. Her recent work illustrates current political conflict between classes and regions. She lives in Southern Ohio with her partner and two dogs.
