Catherine Elwes

Catherine Elwes
Born1952
EducationSlade School of Fine Art
Royal College of Art
Notable workMenstruation II
StyleVideo art

Catherine Elwes (born 1952) is a British artist, curator and critic working predominantly in the field of video art and a significant figure in the British feminist art movement.[1][2][3]

Early life[edit]

She was born in St Maixent, France.[4] She studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and later graduated with an MA in Environmental Media from the Royal College of Art.[5]

Career[edit]

Elwes began working with video in the late 1970s.[citation needed] In 1979 she performed Menstruation II, a three-day performance at the Slade which lasted for the duration of a menstrual period.[6]

She co-curated the exhibitions Women’s Images of Men (with Jacqueline Morreau) and About Time (with Rose Garrard and Sandy Nairne[7]) at the ICA in 1980.[citation needed] She was the director of the biennial UK/Canadian Film & Video Exchange (1998-2006) at the South London Gallery[8] and co-curator of Figuring Landscapes (2008-2010), an international screening exhibition on themes of landscape.[citation needed] Elwes has written extensively about feminist art, performance, installation, landscape and the moving image and is author of Video Loupe (K.T. Press, 2000), Video Art, a guided tour (I.B. Tauris, 2005), Installation and the Moving Image (Wallflower/Columbia University Press, 2015) and Landscape and the Moving Image (Intellect Books, 2022).[citation needed] Elwes is Founding Editor of the Moving Image Review & Art Journal (MIRAJ, Intellect Books) and has contributed to numerous anthologies, journals, exhibition catalogues and periodicals including Art Monthly, Third Text, MIRAJ, the Millennium Film Journal, Time Out, Independent Media, Performance Magazine, Variant, Filmwaves (of which she was an editor), Vertigo and Contemporary Magazine.[citation needed]

Elwes’ video practice is archived at LUX online and REWIND.[1][9]

Elwes taught art for many years and was director of the early Digital Editing Research Programme at Camberwell College of Art in London.[10] She retired as Professor of Moving Image Art from Chelsea College of Art in 2017.[citation needed]

She now lives in Oxford.[3]

Notable artworks[edit]

  • Menstruation II (1979), Slade College of Art
  • Kensington Gore (1982)[11]
  • The critic's informed viewing (1982)[12]
  • First House (1986)[13][14]
  • Post-card (1986)[15]

See also[edit]

External links[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b "Catherine Elwes". LUX Online. Retrieved 7 March 2015.
  2. ^ Elwes, Catherine (2000). Video Loupe: a collection of essays by and about the videomaker and critic. London: KT Press. p. 188. ISBN 0953654109.
  3. ^ a b "Beyond Single Screen Programme". Retrieved 13 March 2022.
  4. ^ "Luxonline". www.luxonline.org.uk. Retrieved 6 March 2019.
  5. ^ "Catherine Elwes". www.ewva.ac.uk. Retrieved 6 March 2019.
  6. ^ Parker, Rozsika; Pollock, Griselda (1985). Framing Feminism, Art and the Women's Movement, 1970-85. London: Pandora. p. 31. ISBN 086358179X.
  7. ^ Elwes, Catherine (1980). About Time: Video, Performance and Installation by 21 Women Artists. London: ICA. ISBN 0-905263-08-1.
  8. ^ Buchan, Suzanne; Charlesworth, JJ; Cox, Geoff; Dorsett, Chris; Elwes, Catherine; Hylton, Richard; Lawrence, Kate; O'Neill, Paul; Phoca, Sophia (2007). Issues in Curating Contemporary Art and Performance. Intellect Books. p. 102. ISBN 978-1-84150-162-8.
  9. ^ "Catherine Elwes – Rewind". rewind.ac.uk. Retrieved 13 March 2022.
  10. ^ "Catherine Elwes | www.li-ma.nl". www.li-ma.nl. Retrieved 6 March 2019.
  11. ^ "Kensington Gore". LUX. Retrieved 13 March 2022.
  12. ^ "Elwes Works". www.ewva.ac.uk. Retrieved 13 March 2022.
  13. ^ "The rise of the gallery retrospective". Apollo Magazine. 30 May 2019. Retrieved 13 March 2022.
  14. ^ "First House". LUX. Retrieved 13 March 2022.
  15. ^ Leuzzi, Laura; Shemilt, Elaine; Partridge, Stephen (2019). EWVA: European Women's Video Art in the 70s and 80s. John Libbey Publishing Limited. p. 124. ISBN 978-0-86196-734-6.