Kate Mahony makes work in front of people. Her practice has come out of framing performance within a ‘gig’ economy that is artistically unrestricted and often unpaid platform. By catering to the ‘gig’ at hand, Mahony’s performances are quick, cheap and site responsive.
For the past ten years she has been creating and curating live performance and moving image works that have embraced immediate ‘DIY’ ways of making. Exhibiting nationally and internationally at intuitions such as SET, Nottingham Contemporary, SPILL Festival, The Bluecoat Gallery, The Goethe University and UICA, USA. Mahony’s practice is cross-disciplinary in approach, from co-curating a performance programme out of a ‘lock up’ single car garage in Bethnal Green (LUPA); to creating a DIY crew of amateur filmmakers to capture a Live Action Roleplay (LARP); as well as fronting two post-punk bands Rainham Sheds and Shake Chain. Mahony is in her fourth year as lead artist for ‘City as Studio’ at Modern Art Oxford, a professional development programme for young artists creating lo-fi performance and moving image works. She is interested in themes spanning from class identity, art-school bands, alternative education, and normative behaviours.
Mahony graduated from Goldsmiths College with her BA in Art Practice in 2012, School of the Damned 2016, and MFA from the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford in 2017. She is a Lecturer in Art at Oxford Brookes University.