Kathy Mackey is a Queensland based multidisciplinary artist whose work explores the complexity of liminal spaces between the natural/ the artificial and the public/ private. Her practice explores the performative aspects of photography and community engaged works as a shared experience. She utilises still and moving images, projections, staged installations and performative works to disrupt mainstream representations of place and to create new interpretations of her encounters. She completed her Ph.D exegesis The Post-tourist Mirror in 2011.
She is available for artists in residences and similar collaborative projects and is represented by Lorraine Pilgrim. See videos about her projects here.
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Images below clock wise from top left : Body Drawing 1( Semi finalist in the 2025 Mullins Conceptual Photography Prize), Inverted Marble Drawing, Kavala – Greece( 2025), Artefacts of Leisure Installation Still HOTA (2024), Aqueous Drawings 1 – Video Still (2024)and Lets Organise Your Leisure Horizon Festival OTA Lake Installation (2023).
In 2021 Mackey began working as one of eight artists on the GENERATE GC Project through which she explored the concept of organised leisure through site responsive works. See more about the GENERATE GC 21 project here. The project entitled “Let’s Organise Your Leisure” (LOYL) was the subject of a successful pilot workshop and presentation program at HOTA (The Home of The Arts)in January 2022.The project was further developed through an artist-in-residence project at the Georges River in Sydney during the following autumn. Further iterations of LOYL ( at greater scale and complexity) were presented at the SWELL Sculpture Festival (Gold Coast) in September 2022 the HORIZON Festival at the Sunshine Coast in September 2023 and the Cairns Festival 2025.
Kathy is a mid career artist who has been the recipient of several awards and fellowships including :
Gold Coast City Art Prize Parks Victoria Residency 1999
Monash Gallery of Art Bowness Photography Prize 2006
Queensland Smithsonian Fellowship 2014
See below for information about her recent and current residencies and projects.
Kathy Mackey 