Renewed Beginnings
Highly Commended
Denise Leigh Cross
Renewed Beginnings [detail] 2025
Portrait of Denise Leigh Cross and Veronica Mckenzie
Acrylic on canvas
120 x 90 cm
About the Artwork
Renewed Beginnings responds to the once lingering effects of the traumatic loss of my childhood relationship between myself and my biological mother. In the complexity of the tapestry woven together, my mother and I share our past. The broken threads in this tapestry have helped shape me, building within me a resilience, enabling me to keep going. The road ahead wasn’t always straight; pathways move upwards and downwards with twists and turns. A different story unfolded to what was originally intended, exuded through symbolism and metaphorical imagery, both implicitly and explicitly. The patterns within the tapestry may have shifted and changed but still create something stunning and breathtakingly beautiful. I sit here now afresh with the knowledge that beauty can still arise from imperfections; renewed beginnings lie before us as mother and daughter.
About the Artist
Denise Cross has been a secondary art teacher within Brisbane, Townsville and Bangkok over 26 years. Having previously completed a Bachelor of Fine Art and Master of Education, she is progressively working towards a Master in Visual Art at Queensland College of Art and Design, Griffith University. Her teaching has always been accompanied by a personal art practice, and Denise has been selected as a finalist for highly competitive art competitions (among them the Percival Portrait Painting Prize, 2018; Brisbane Portrait Awards, 2023; Brisbane Portrait Awards, 2024; Salon des Refusés, 2024; Redlands Art Awards, 2024; and QLD Figurative, 2026). She has also regularly held solo and group exhibitions within Queensland and Bangkok.