Graham Crowley, Cristina Bunello, Andrew Folan, Michael Wann, John Boyd, Clea van der Grijn, Andrew Clancy, Graham Chorlton, Mary Rose Binchy and Laurent Mellet are the ten artists featured in Cross' next exhibition.

Graham Crowley was born in Romford in 1950, and grew up there and in Ilford and Southend. He is, in a very real sense, an Essex lad, a child of Eastern England, whose first painting aquired by Christchurch Mansion was purchased from the Tolly Cobbol Eastern Arts Exhibition in 1997. This picture, entitled Curl, is a typical example of Crowley’s early style, a feisty abstraction full of impossible but dynamic shapes and acute colours. But as his work developed and his thought matured, Crowley began to realize that abstraction was ‘less engaging’ than figuration for someone of his temperament; it was actually ‘less demanding’. Crowley is a painter of restless intelligence and tremendous energy, and it soon became apparent that these qualities, combined with a rather unfashionable social conscience, would propel him into exploring the world about him through an intensely focused realism quite unlike anything else to be found on the contemporary art scene.

Cristina Bunello 's work to date has been of the human face and the possible interpretations of that image by the viewer. These small works are not designed to be viewed as portraits. The source material comes from photographs of real people taken by the artist but the process then becomes blurred when props such as sunglasses, a hat or an article of clothing are added to that image as if dressing a mannequin. The integral part of Cristina's work lies in the difference between her paintings and portraiture.

In an exhibition of recent work, Andrew Folan plants a virtual garden and propagates a sequence of new species. Working in a generative manner he establishes organic forms and enables their growth within the weightless and frictionless space of the computer. In this rarefied “hot house” environment the original digital species may be grown. Using animation software and rapid prototyping these creations occupy a virtual space, while simultaneously manifesting in his work as actual instances of their evolution.

Michael Wann lives and works in north Sligo. He graduated from Sligo Institute of Technology in 1992 with a diploma in Fine Art, and in 2003 with a Bachelor in Fine Art. In 2001 he won the Iontas Small Works Drawing Award at Sligo Art Gallery, and was awarded residencies at Cill Riallaig Artists' Retreat in Co. Kerry in 2001, 2004 and 2007. Michael has held many solo exhibitions of his work, and has been selected for the Royal Hibernian Academy's Annual Exhibition in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. In 2006, he was awarded the AXA Insurance Drawing Prize, also at the annual RHA show. His work forms part of private and public collections nationwide, including Mayo County Council, Yeats Society, Sligo, AXA Insurance, Fingal County Council, Lissadell House, Sligo, and Beaumont Hospital.

John Boyd was born in Carlisle, England in 1957 and studied painting in the Slade School of Art. He has resided in Ireland for the past 15 years and has exhibited regularly throughout the world since the late 70s, most often in London, America and Ireland. He is now represented in numerous collections both public and private, in Ireland and abroad; including AIB, Christies London, Morgan Grenfell, De Beers, Glen Dimplex, The Merrion Hotel and more recently The Residence private members club. With each new series of paintings Boyd’s subject matter has become increasingly pared back, prioritizing as its subject the synthesis of a painted surface. Released from even the mildest restriction of realism, these animals stand stoically in defiance of interpretation.

Born in Dublin, Clea van der Grijn graduated from NCAD college in 1991 and has since exhibited extensively throughout Ireland and England. She was the first Irish representative in the European Emerging Artists, Biennial Ludwig Forum (1992), also the Irish Arts Council nominee in Bruise and Dishonour, Hetvijfde Seizoen, Belgium (1993). Clea is now recognised as one of Irelands finest young artists. Her work is featured in many private and corporate collections around the world. Commissions include: Trintech, Dublin, Barnes Vereker, London and The Morrison Hotel, Dublin.

Andrew Clancy studied architecture at University College Dublin, graduating in 2001. He established Clancy Moore Architects with Colm Moore in 2006. Since then the practice has gained significant attention and awards both domestically and internationally. The work of the practice is concerned with examining craft and other traditions of making and using these to create a unique, place-specific way of making buildings. The Strand Lamps result from one of these collaborations, and were originally envisaged as gifts for a builder and client on a project.

Graham Chorlton was born in Leicester in 1953 and attended Leeds University. His “paintings of urban scenes also explore the relationship between what we see and what we know. He uses layers and washes of acrylic paint to suggest the feeling of a particular place or location. His paintings have previously been described as “lonely, melancholy descriptions of architecture, civil engineering and urban design, often depicted at night and usually without human presence – but never without humanity and an air of excitement and mystery.”

Mary Rose Binchy graduated from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin with a First Class Honours Fine Art Degree in 1993 and has since worked consistently predominantly as a painter but also as a printmaker having joined Graphic Studio Dublin in 1995. Mary Rose has been the recipient of a number of Arts Council of Ireland awards and received a fellowship from The Ballinglen Foundation in Co. Mayo in 2003. She has exhibited regularly throughout Ireland and overseas in numerous solo and group exhibitions and has worked on a number of notable commissions. Her work is included in many private and public collections and she exhibited most recently in the Artists/Heaney/Books Exhibition at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin.

Born in Co. Tipperary and resident in Co. Wicklow, Laurent Mellet graduated from NCAD in 1992. He has since worked in New York, San Francisco, Paris and Dublin, on both sculptural commissions and as an art director on numerous film and television projects. Commissions include a set of five sculptures for ABN AMRO Bank’s offices in the IFSC, Dublin, an “art mobile” for Saachi & Saachi’s offices, London, and a large pig sculpture, created to raise money for the Kosovo Fund and now on permanent display at Dublin Airport. He has exhibited for the past two years at the annual RHA exhibition and was awarded there the Solomon Gallery prize for sculpture, 2003.