| Ed Cross |
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| 1956 Born in Shropshire, England |
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| 1965 Moved to Melbourne, Australia |
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| 1975-78 Art History at Cambridge University |
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| 1988 Married Suhaila and moved to Mombasa, Kenya |
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| 1988 Group exhibition Ratna Gallery, Mombasa |
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| 1989 Group exhibition Nyali Beach Gallery, Mombasa |
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| 2002 Two man show with Mary Collis, Rahimtulla Museum of Modern Art, Nairobi |
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| 2003 Cadogan Contemporary Summer Exhibition, London |
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| 2003 Stephen Lacey Gallery, London |
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2005 |
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Ed Cross is a British sculptor who has lived on the Kenyan coast for the last 15 years. He works in driftwood, clay, bronze and aluminium. The work is a combination of abstract painting and modified found materials sculpture - in this case fragments of discarded dugout canoes known as "madau". The canoe - one of man's earliest technological achievements is used as a metaphor for transformation, life, loss and spiritual rebirth. The work presents a journey from Mango tree, to boat, to discarded object - often colonised by marine insects and reshaped by the sea, the sand and the sun. The work is cross-cultural; romantic, Christian and pre Christian sensibilities applied to time worn African objects. Connections are suggested between the functional forms made by the boat carvers and Norman church arches, gothic ruins or standing stones. There is also an eclecticism in the work. The viewer senses the original ëplatonicí object - the boat, the tree that preceded it, the decay and the transformation. A link is made between the viewer, the artist, the boat carver, the fishermen, the insects, and the elements. Poignantly, the objects from which this work is derived are becoming scarce as Mango trees are felled for building materials, and the skills of the boat craftsmen disperse as over-fishing and tourism take their toll on the traditional and ancient African coastal way of life.
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