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Kate Pickering

Profile/CV

Kate Pickering is a London based artist and recently completed her MFA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College. Her work arises from the marginal position of being an artist who is also religious, working within the ‘post-ideological’ world of contemporary art. She uses this counter-cultural position to address the beliefs and disbelief she encounters about art. Her interest is in how the language of religion might be used to both examine and undo art world norms and assumptions. Texts appropriated from various religious sources are projected or performed, in order to mesmerise or confront the spectator. The confident passion of the believer implicates the audience, who are either disturbed or entranced, reflecting back the position of the viewer. Through this strategy of over-identifying with the fervour of belief in some higher purpose, the work aims to upend the expectations of a liberal, disenchanted audience, with whom this proves awkward and difficult to accommodate, and refers to the lost belief in art as a force for social and political change.

Forthcoming exhibitions:

2010 The Assistant, (in collaboration with Maria Fusco) Bearspace Gallery, London, May

2010 Solo show, We Will Make A Way, Bloc space, Sheffield, November

2010 Not Quite Yet, Waterside projects, date tbc

Selected group exhibitions:

2010 The Devil's Necktie Woodmill Studios, London

2009 WORDS Am Nuden Da, London,

2009 Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite Anda De Bridge, London

2009 MFA Degree Show Goldsmiths College, London

2009 Group/Grope Area 10, London

2007 Shifting States Bearspace, London

2007 Pure Balls 222space, London