About the Artist

WENDY
CROSS.com

About The Artist

Wendy Cross was born in Wilton, Connecticut in 1965. She learned to paint and draw from her grandmother who was also a painter. She painted her first painting in oils at age 11.

In 1989 Wendy earned a BFA from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.

Living in the Midwest was an eye-opening experience. After growing up in one of the wealthiest communities in the nation, Fairfield County, Connecticut, she found herself in one of the poorest, Athens County, Ohio. Although the city of Athens is itself a typical quant college community, its outlying areas typify Appalachian poverty.

Wendy lived in Athens County from 1984 to 1997. At this time, Ohio experienced the devastation of the Farm Crisis in which thousands of farms were foreclosed due to falling grain prices. In addition to rural devastation, major cities such as Cleveland and Akron lost thousands of jobs as work forces were slashed and jobs moved overseas.

Wendy returned east in 2006. Back in New England she was struck by the numerous factory towns with closed factories, ghostly shells of their former selves.

Wendy's art evokes the economic loss experienced in much of America for the past three decades.

She lives in central Connecticut with her partner and five dogs.