Artist

Born: England (Irish Citizen)
Based: St Ives, Cornwall, UK
Email: studio@katesouthworth.art
Website: www.katesouthworth.art

Collections

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (Artport Digital Collection)

Rhizome Artbase, New Museum, New York

Private Collections (19 works)

Selected Museum and Institutional Exhibitions

2025 Tranceducers, CPS Gallery Soho, London (with Ithell Colquhoun, Madge Gill, Georgiana Houghton, Nnena Kalu and others)

2019 WEB-RETRO, Seoul Museum of Art, Korea (30th Anniversary of the World Wide Web)

2014 Embedded, Enys House and Gardens, Cornwall (Funded by Arts Council England)

2009 Craftivism, Arnolfini, Bristol

2009 ISEA 2009, Belfast (international juried exhibition)

Solo Exhibition

2019 Fertile Darkness, The Fish Factory Art Space, Penryn, Cornwall

Recent Projects

2024-2025 The Order of the Sun and Moon exhibition and discussion series, St Ives and London

Selected Institutional Talks

2024 "The Alchemical Soul Paints Itself Transforming," University of Oxford, London Arts Based Research Centre

2023-2024 The Order of the Sun and Moon discussion series (with Dr Amy Hale, Emma Sharples, Julian Vayne, Greg Humphries, Neil Scott)

2010 "Beyond the Academy: Research as Exhibition," Tate Britain

2008 "Media Matters: Friedrich Kittler and Technoculture," Tate Modern (Chair)

2007 "Disrupting Narratives," Tate Modern (Chair and co-organiser)

Education and Research

2014 PhD Fine Art, University of Leeds (Supervisors: Professor Griselda Pollock, Professor Chris Taylor)

2013-2018 Senior Lecturer/Course Coordinator BA Fine Art, Falmouth University

2009-2013 Award Leader MA Curatorial Practice, University College Falmouth

Selected Publications and Media

2021 Furtherfield Podcast: The Radical Friendship Series (interviewed by Marc Garrett)

2020 Interalia Magazine, November 2020 Issue on Alchemy, Occult, Esoteric Practices

2018 Leonorana Magazine, Issue 1 Alimentary Diets (invited contribution)

2009 Databrowser 04: Creating Insecurity (invited artwork)

Awards and Commissions

2014 Arts Council England funding, Embedded

2011 Arts Council England funding, Electronic Village Galleries project

2010 Arts Council England funding, "Dematerial: Critical Debates in Digital Arts"

Professional Recognition

2009-2010 Advisory Board Member, Look Groups Pilot Project, Tate St Ives

1992-1997 Creative Director, Sony S2 Record Label; Art Co-ordinator, Vogue Magazine

Practice

Kate Southworth's constellation-based practice integrates painting, ritual, and symbolic enquiry through rigorous practice-based research. She explores how contemporary artwork might critically engage with the radically different web-like forms of both the psyche and of the distributed network.

Her paintings develop through automatic and receptive processes, building layered surfaces where figurative forms, cosmic terrains, and geometric structures accumulate and interact. This material practice forms one element within larger works that may include plant relationships, textual fragments, and devised rituals distributed across space and time.

Drawing from PhD research on Bracha Ettinger and network forms supervised by Professor Griselda Pollock and Professor Chris Taylor, Southworth's work operates at the intersection of historical lineage (Colquhoun, Houghton, af Klint, Kunz), contemporary theory (network forms, psychoanalysis), and innovative methodology. Her institutional presentations at Tate Modern, Tate Britain, and University of Oxford establish her voice within discussions of expanded artistic practice and interdisciplinary methodology.