About me

Lauren Cross is a interdisciplinary artist, filmmaker, curator, and scholar whose work has been screened and exhibited across the country. Cross earned her BA (2006') in Art, Design, and Media from Richmond, the American International University in London, England, and her MFA (2010') in Visual Arts from Lesley University in Cambridge, MA. She has a Ph.D in Multicultural Women's and Gender Studies from Texas Woman's University in Denton, TX (2017').

Cross' feature film, The Skin Quilt Project, was an official selection for the 2010 International Black Women's Film Festival in Berkeley, CA and screened at various museums, universities/colleges, and community organizations across the country.

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Her artworks have been featured at institutions like the  Cameron Art Museum (Wilmington, NC), One Mile Gallery (Kingston, NY), Galveston Arts Center (Galveston, TX), Women & Their Work (Austin, TX), African American Museum in Dallas (Dallas, TX), South Dallas Cultural Center (Dallas, TX), Cliff Gallery at Mountain View College (Dallas, TX), Artspace 111 (Fort Worth, TX), Community Arts Collective (Houston, TX), Carver Community Center (San Antonio, TX), Southwest School of Art (San Antonio, TX), The Armory Center (Pasadena, CA), Driveby Projects (Boston, MA), South Shore Arts Center (Cohassett, MA), and the University of Wyoming (Lamarie, WY).

In 2013, Cross founded WoCA Projects, an arts non-profit supporting the work of women artists of color through exhibitions and community arts programming. Her work with the organization was critically acclaimed: in 2013 she was honored with a Fort Worth Weekly Visionary Award, in 2015 named one of Dallas Observers' "100 Dallas Creatives," and in 2019 she was listed as one of "13 Women Forwarding Fort Worth."​

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Her support of the careers of other artists has been nationally recognized, curating exhibitions at the Houston Museum of African American Culture (Houston, TX), African American Museum in Dallas (Dallas, TX), Center for Fine Arts Photography (Fort Collins, CO), Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (Madison, WI), and Artpace San Antonio (San Antonio, TX). Her writings have been featured in exhibition catalogs the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Craft in America, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Mississippi Museum of Art, and Women & Their Work to name a few, she also served as the guest arts editor for Gulf Coast Literary Journal from 2023-2025.

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She is a passionate advocate for diversity in the arts and has written and contributed scholarly writings in fields of art history/visual culture, women's studies, and multicultural studies. She is a sought-after speaker on various topics across the arts, including but not limited to race, gender and the arts, revisionist arts history and curatorial practice, cultural policy and the creative economy to design, architecture, and material culture.

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She has consulted and supported cultural programs/public art/grants for museums and cultural institutions like Artadia, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, the Center for Creative Connections at the Dallas Museum of Art, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth Public Art, San Antonio River Authority, Transcultural Art Exchange, the Dallas Museum of Art, Nasher Sculpture Center, Maine Art Commission, and Kent State University Museum.

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In addition to her art and independent curatorial and writing practice, Cross is the Gail-Oxford Associate Curator of American Decorative Arts at The Huntington (San Marino, CA). She also serves as the Executive Strategist and Curatorial Consultant for the National Juneteenth Museum (Fort Worth, TX). She was formerly the Program Coordinator and Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Art and Design Studies at the University of North Texas (2015-2023), and taught courses in multicultural women and gender studies at Texas Woman's University (Denton, TX), as well as design and art history courses at Tarrant County College (Fort Worth, TX), Stonehill College (Eaton, MA), Mount Idea College (Milton, MA)

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