KATE MCMILLAN
Portfolio
Kate McMillan
b. 1974 Hampshire, United Kingdom
1982-2012, Perth, Australia
Currently lives and works in London
Teaching Fellow, Department for Culture, Media and Creative Industries. King’s College, London
Education:
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2011-2014 Phd, Curtin University, Perth, supervised by Dr Anna Haebich
1997-1999 Masters in Creative Arts (by research), Curtin University, Perth
1992-1996 Bachelor of Arts, First Class Honours, Fine Arts, Curtin University, Perth
Solo exhibitions:
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2016 Stones for Dancing, Stones for Dying, Castor Projects, London
2015 Anxious Objects, Moana Project Space, Perth
2014 The Moment of Disappearance, Performance Space & Carriageworks, Sydney
The Potter’s Field, ACME Project Space, London
2013 In The Shadow Of The Past, This World Knots Tight, Venn Gallery, Perth
2012 Paradise Falls, Venn Gallery, Perth
2008 lost, John Curtin Gallery, Perth
2005 Broken Ground, Margaret Moore Contemporary Art, Perth
2004 New Work, Frontstore Gallery, Basel, Switzerland
Disaster Narratives, presented as part of Perth International Arts Festival, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art
(PICA), Perth
2001Undercover, Fremantle Arts Centre, Fremantle
Sacrificial Economy, Verge Gallery, Perth
2000 Hedge, Rubyayre Gallery, Sydney
Ambiguous Objectives, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA), Perth
1999 New Work, Verge Gallery, Perth
1998 New Work, Verge Gallery, Perth
1997 New Work, Arthouse Gallery, Perth
Selected group exhibitions:
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2017 PALINOPSIA / AFTERIMAGE. Tieranatomisches Theater (Animal Anatomical Theatre aka Zootomie),
Berlin. Curated by Rachel Rits-Volloch and Isabel de Sena
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2015Somewhere In-Between. Curated by Huma Kabakci. Karavil Contemporary, London
StructuralObject HouseProject27. Curated by Linda Persson. Temporary space, Greenwich, London
2014 Momento Mori. Curated by Prof. Ted Snell, Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, Perth
PhD research presentation. John Curtin Gallery, Perth
Time Art Impact. Curated by Dr Rachel Rits-Volloch. Minsheng Museum, Shanghai & Momentumn, Berlin,
2013 A heap of broken images (Arts Proper), Assemblage, Sydney
Thresholds. Curated by David Elliott. Trafco Center for Contemporary Art, Poland,
2012 Joondalup Invitation Art Award (winner), Lakeside Joondalup, Perth
2011Sixth Sense: Contemporary Photography in Western Australia, presented as part of Fotofreo
Gallery Central, Perth
Spaced: Art Out of Place, presented by IASKA, Fremantle Arts Centre, Perth International Arts Festival (national
tour 2012-2014)
2010 The Beauty of Distance: Songs of Survival in a Precarious Age. Curated by David Elliott. Biennale of
Sydney
2009-10 Built, curated by Jenepher Duncan, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth
2008 Silver: 25 years of Artrage. Curated by Marcus Canning. PICA, Perth
2006 If you leave me can I come too? Curated by Bec Dean, Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney
2005 I have seen some strange places. Curated by Jeff Khan. Gertrude Contemporary Art Space, , Melbourne
2004 Regionale 5, Kunsthaus Baselland. Curated by Sabine Schaschl, Basel, Switzerland
2003 Mixtape. Curated by Dr Robert Cook and Jenepher Duncan. Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth
Wild Frontier, Downtown, Adelaide
Flux: Uncertain States. Curated by John Barrett-Lennard. Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, Perth
2002 Neo Geo. Curated by Suellyn Luckett, John Curtin Gallery, Perth
Moving Collection. Curated by Roger McDonald, Govett Brewster Gallery, New Zealand & AIT Tokyo, Japan
Urban Anxiety. Artrage Festival, Perth, touring to 1aspace, Hong Kong
2001Loop. Curated by Michelle Sicilliano, Moores Building Fremantle
do it. Curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Sophie O’Brien & Dr Robert Cook. Presented as part of Perth
International Arts Festival, Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, Perth
Sacrificial economy. Fremantle Arts Centre, Perth
2000 Nightswimming. Curated by Dr Robert Cook, presented as part of Perth International Arts
Festival, Craftwest, Perth
1999 Re:body. Fremantle Arts Centre, Perth
Residencies:
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2016 National Centre for Contemporary Art, St Petersberg
2014 Australia Council Studio at ACME Studios, London, United Kingdom
2011 Artsource/Christoph Merian Stiftung, six-month residency, Basel, Switzerland
IASKA, Spaced residency, Leonora, WA
2010 Marrickville Council Residency, Sydney
2003 One-month self funded research, Berlin, Germany
Red Gate Gallery Studio, Beijing, China
2002 Australia Council Studio, Tokyo, Japan
Commissions
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2011 Kambarang. Seacrest Public Art Commission, City of Joondalup
2010 Ver non simper viret. KMPG Photographic Commission
2009 Whispering Hills. Private Commission, Perth
Selected awards and grants
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2013 Creative Development Fellowship, Department for Culture and the Arts, Western Australia
2012 Overall Acquisitive Award, Joondalup Invitation Art Award, Perth
2011 Australian Postgraduate Award with Stipends (to undertake Phd)
2009-11 Established Artist New Work Grant, Australia Council for the Arts
2010 Project Grant, Department for Culture and the Arts, Western Australia
2008 Mid-Career Creative Development Fellowship, Department for Culture and the Arts, Western Australia
1998 Australian Postgraduate Award with Stipends (to undertake Masters Degree)
Selected bibliography
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Daniel C Blight. Magpie for Anxious Objects. Catalogue Essay, Anxious Objects, Moana. April 2015
David Elliott & Bec Dean. Essayists for monograph, The Moment of Disappearance, November, 2014
Elizabeth Stanton. The Potter’s Field, Catalogue Essay, July, 2014
Darren Jorgensen. Paradise Falls, The West Australian, June 2012
Nicola Harvey. Spaced: Art out of place, Frieze, Issue 147, May 2012
Sarah Miller. The Artist-in-residence: beyond just being there, Realtime 108, April 2012
Melissa Ratliff. Islands of Incarceration, catalogue essay for 2010 Biennale of Sydney, 2010
Adam Fulton and Caris Bizzaca. WA artist shows wares in Sydney, The West Australian, May 2010
David Elliott. Catalogue essay for 2010 Biennale of Sydney, 2010
Geraldine Barlow. Catalogue essay for lost, 2008
Ric Spencer. Images of lost meaning, The West of Australian, November 2008
Bec Dean. Catalogue essay for Broken Ground, 2005
Les Walking. The craft of photography in the age of digital reproduction, Artlink, Vol 25 no 1, 2005
Dr Ian McLean. Catalogue essay for Disaster Narratives, 2004
Simon Blond. Hopeful disasters, The West Australian, February 2004
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Dr Robert Cook. Catalogue essay for Mixtape, 2003
Nyanda Smith. Wilder shores of fancy, The West Australian, August 2003
Selected collections
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Momentum Collection, Berlin; Christoph Merian Foundation, Basel; Art Gallery of Western Australia; City of
Joondalup; City of Perth; Curtin University Art Collection; Kerry Stokes Collection; KPMG; Murdoch University
Art Collection; Wesfarmers; University of Western Australia
Biography:
Kate McMillan’s work incorporates a range of media including installation, sculpture, film, sound,
photography and painting. McMillan is interested in the linking narratives of forgetting and place, often
focusing on the residue of the past. Her artworks thus act as haunting memory-triggers for histories and
ideas that are over-looked.
She is currently working towards a major project with 'Momentum: Global Platform for Time Based Art' for
early 2017. The work entitled 'The Ghosts of Material Things' engages with ideas of involuntary memory
and uses the Gordon Medical Pathology Museum in London, King's College, the Musee Marcel Proust in
Illiers-Combray, the Musee Carnavalet in Paris and Berlin's Charite Medical History Museum to navigate
the fictional lives of a family who come back from the past and attempt to repatriate objects and body
parts from these museums. The work engages with ideas of migration, lost memory and historical trauma.
In July 2016 she has been invited to undertake a residency in St Petersburg as part of the National Centre
for Contemporary Art (NCCA) where she will develop new works.
In June 2015 McMillan was included in StructuralObject HouseProject27 curated by Linda Persson at a site
in Greenwich, London, alongside other artists such as Bridget Currie and Laure Provoust. In April 2015
McMillan presented an exhibition of small sculptures and experimental films at Moana Project Space in
Perth, Australia entitled 'Anxious Objects'. In November 2014 she presented a project three years in
development with Performance Space in Sydney that was presented at Carriageworks entitled 'The
Moment of Disappearance'. The five channel film and installation included a new sound work composed
by Cat Hope and recorded with the London Improvisers Orchestra. The work will tour to various Australian
and International venues in 2015 and 2016.
Previous solo exhibitions include The Potter’s Field, 2014, ACME Project Space, London; In the shadow of
the past, this world knots tight, 2013 Venn Gallery; Paradise Falls, 2012, Venn Gallery; Lost at the John
Curtin Gallery in 2008, Broken Ground in 2006 at Margaret Moore Contemporary Art and Disaster
Narratives at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts for the 2004 Perth International Arts Festival. She
has been included in various group exhibitions over the last few years including the 2010 Biennale of
Sydney, the Trafco Centre for Contemporary Art, Poland, Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, Art Gallery of
Western Australia, Gertrude Street Contemporary Art in Melbourne, Govett Brewster Art Gallery in New
Zealand, Doit curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist & Sophie O'Brien as well as the Australian Centre for
Photography in Sydney.
Since 2002 she has undertaken residencies in London, Tokyo, Switzerland, Berlin, Sydney, China and Hong
Kong. McMillan has been the recipient of numerous grants including more recently a 2011 New Work
Grant from the Australia Council, which she also received in 2009. In 2013 she was awarded a Fellowship
from the Department of Culture and the Arts (WA) and a Mid-Career Fellowship in 2008. She has resided
on the Board of the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA), National Association for the Visual Arts
(NAVA) based in Sydney and has worked as a Peer and an Advisor for the Australia Council for the Arts.
Her PhD (2014) explored the capacity for Contemporary Art to unforget history. McMillan is a part-time
Teaching Fellow at King's College, London where she lectures on the Masters Program in the Department
for Culture, Media and Creative Industries. She is also an External Examiner for Brighton University, UK.
McMillan has taught at Open University via Curtin University, Australia; Coventry University and the
University of Creative Art, Farnham.
Kate McMillan, Anxious objects, Various bronzes, 2015
Kate McMillan, Anxious objects, A3 framed photograph and single bronze, 2015
Kate McMillan, Everything is ruined, but beautiful, (1-5 works)
Air dryed clay, wooden shelf, acrylic paint, 2014
Kate McMillan, Plato's cave, 2014
Kate McMillan, Do you remember the darkroom?, 2 channel film, 2014
Kate McMillan, Paradise Falls 1, Film, 2012
Kate McMillan, Paradise Falls 1, Film, 2012
Kate McMillan, Paradise falls, 3 digital photographs, 2012
Kate McMillian, Ver Non Simper Viret, 5 large scale framed works, 2010