Corner 1975

Completed in 1975, during Cross’ time as Lecturer at the University of Reading, Corner is part of a series of acrylic and oil collages experimenting with light, colour and geometry. A natural progression from the Lightworks exhibition of 1972, this series was shaped by Cross’s initial training as an Architect at Manchester School of Art as well as his recent work to refurbish his home in Reading. The piece should be examined alongside Slow (1975), Snow (1975) and Jack (1975), which were all worked on through the Winter of 1974 into Spring 1975. The work is deliberate, calculated and meticulously planned despite its abstract and apparently random appearance. 

From Sketchbook FCP3/B/1/22 p43 

5 April 1974  

“Concentration on the work of the house is good, but it leaves no time at all for more creative work. No time to think, but just to do. When can I start again. When can I sit in a heated room, with the door closed. Not an office, not a workshop but both of these. Surround myself with drawings. The drawings of the house as it has been constructed. The structures that have been made. Can I start with the idea of structure? I have worked well with an idea – practical, governed by function- size, height, use. And by geometry, proportion and by materials that are available…perhaps some of the structural drawings can be made use of here” 

From Sketchbook FCP3/B/1/22 p91 

31 May [1975] 

“the colour seems to work reasonably well. Straightforward colour Yellows with grey-white, which seem to divide up the strong design of the shapes…structural colour and which the colour performs persist e.g. where two colours would appear to overlap a new mixture is formed”.