ART / Modern Icons: Croquet: The Irish artist Dorothy Cross 'invites' her viewers to play croquet with cows' udders

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I've been working with udders for about two years now. The idea is simple. It's about disruption. I'm interested in the way that the cow is reduced to nothing more than a milk- producing machine, an udder, a ball. An udder has four teats and reduces down to four individual balls. Croquet seemed an obvious metaphor. It's the only sport that uses four balls of that size. It was a happy coincidence. The big ball is a 'mother' ball with four teats but the others, although they only have one teat each, are also complete within themselves. A single teat is both phallic and a nipple. Because of the reduction they can now fit through the hoops. They can participate in a convention which isn't progressive. A new breed infiltrating the game of conformity. It looks like the game is in progress but you know that, if you played it, it would create havoc. It wouldn't be the nice civilised game that croquet is meant to be.

Frith Street Gallery, 60 Frith St, London, W1 (071-494 1550). To 13 August

Interview by Iain Gale

(Photograph omitted)