Wilma Cruise uses the body as the vehicle for the exploration of meaning. The body provides the metaphorical link between unconscious realities and the conscious known world. Her sculptures are rendered in expressive life-size figures in bronze and ceramic which in recent years have included animals such as horses and sheep. In collaboration with David Krut Arts Resource she has produced a body of work on paper that incorporates the figure, animals and text.

Recent works include The l Suite. This suite of works includes installations and a series of mono-prints made in collaboration with David Krut Arts Resource and the commission Sheep May Safely Graze: the Return of the Bultfontein Sheep for the Oliewenhuis Museum in Bloemfontein. Another public work The Right to Life was installed at the Constitutional Court in 2004.

Cruise has had eleven one-person shows and curated several others. She has won awards including Architect's Project Award in 2000 for the Women's Monument at the Union Buildings, the Quarterly Vita Award in 1993 for Nicholas - October 1990 and the Lorenzo il Magnifico Award at the Biennale Internazionale Dell’arte Contemporanea, Florence.

Her work is represented in The South African National Gallery, the Corobrik Collection, the Pretoria Art Museum, The Durban Art Museum, the University of South Africa, MTN, the Billiton Collection, Standard Bank and the Constitutional Court.