ANDREW CROSS
21 January – 27 February

Open Mon - Fri 10 - 5, Sat 12 - 4
Opening 20 January 6 - 8pm
Delfina, 50 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3UD

Delfina is pleased to present the first London staging of 3 Hours from Here by Andrew Cross. This recent video records a journey by long-distance lorry through a contemporary English landscape of motorways, freight distribution centres and out-of-town container parks. Full of subtle insights into the banalities and vicissitudes of travel, and highlighting Cross’s trademark passion for transport vehicles and long-distance journeys, the piece also alludes to JB Priestley’s classic ‘English Journey’ (published 1934). In its own understated way, Cross’s video offers a similar state-of-the-nation reflection on the nature of England today.

3 Hours from Here was the centre piece of a recent touring exhibition called ‘An English Journey’ that travelled to John Hansard Gallery, Southampton, Rugby Art Gallery and Museum and Castlefield Gallery, Manchester (venues at the beginning, middle and end of Cross’s lorry’s route.) Exhibited for the first time in London at Delfina, 3 Hours from Here is accompanied by a new work Foreign Power (Part 4), the latest in a series of short videos by Cross focusing on American railroads, and a companion piece to work shown in his Beck’s Futures exhibition in 2004.

Andrew Cross's visual journeys are simultaneously about traveling and dwelling, departures and arrivals, passing through and passing by, the close at hand and the distant. As viewers of his work, we locate ourselves between these opposites, engaging with their inherent tensions, like a psychological equivalent to the points that dominate his transport images, where lines converge and diverge.  
Andrew Cross (born 1961, UK) lives and works in London. Following a career as a curator he began working as an artist in 2000. His first book of photographs ‘Some Trains in America’ was published by Prestel in 2002 and was followed in 2003 by ‘Along Some American Highways’, published by Black Dog Publishing. A book also called ‘An English Journey’ (published by Film and Video Umbrella and John Hansard Gallery) and following the route of 3 Hours from Here was produced to accompany the exhibition.

Born England 1961. Graduated Bath Academy of Art 1983. Following a successful career as a curator began working as an artist in 2000 when he received an Arts Council year of the Artist Residency in Swindon.
His first book of photographs Some Trains in America was published by Prestel in 2002 and was followed in 2003 by Along Some American Highways, published by Black Dog Publishing. He made his first video work during a residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Florida and this piece was subsequently short-listed for Beck's Futures 2004. 3 hrs from here - his Film & Video Umbrella commission of 2004 - was the subject of his first UK touring exhibition An English Journey organised in collaboration with the John Hansard Gallery, Southampton. Cross's work has been exhibited in the UK and abroad and is included in a number of collections including the V&A Museum.

For further information please contact Karin Eklund on 020 7357 6600 or email admin@delfina.org.uk.