Cathy Wilkes was born in 1966 in Belfast. She attended Glasgow School of Art (1985 – 1988) and studied for an MFA at the University of Ulster. 

Wilkes is best known as an installation artist who creates imaginary environments out of paintings and other assemblages using found and produced materials. Very often these will include including shop bought mannequins, papier-mache, antique clothing and kitchenalia.  There is a melancholic and poetic feel to her work and an emphasis on the subjective experience of both the artist and viewer, with a particular focus on representations of femininity and womanhood. 

The artist was a Turner Prize nominee in 2008 and is part of GENERATION 2014 with a solo exhibition at Tramway Glasgow. Other solo exhibitions have taken place at Xavier Hufkens, Brussels (2013); Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (2012); Kunstverein Munich (2011); Studio Voltaire in 2009; and Milton Keynes Gallery in 2008.

Wilkeswas a sculpture tutor at the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design between 1996-2000. She lives and works in Glasgow.

Glossary

  • Design

    The arrangement of elements or details in an artefact or a work of art.

  • Installation

    An artwork comprised of many and various elements of miscellaneous materials (see mixed media), light and sound, which is conceived for and occupies an entire space, gallery or site. The viewer can often enter or walk around the installation. Installations may only exist as long as they are installed, but can be re-created in different sites. Installation art emerged in the 1960s out of Environmental Art (works of art which are three-dimensional environments), but it was not until the 1970s that the term came into common use and not until the late 1980s that artists started to specialise in this kind of work, creating a genre of ‘Installation Art’. The term can also be applied to the arrangement of selected art works in an exhibition.

  • Sculpture

    A three-dimensional work of art. Such works may be carved, modelled, constructed, or cast. Sculptures can also be described as assemblage, in the round, relief, and made in a huge variety of media. Contemporary practice also includes live elements, as in Gilbert & George 'Living Sculpture' as well as broadcast work, radio or sound sculpture.

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