Katthy Cavaliere was an Italian born Australian artist known for her performances and installations. Her work sought to understand herself and the world around her using everyday objects, particularly those from her childhood. Her belongings and those of her family, including toys, photographs and objects, formed the basis of much of her work, which she obsessively stored, collated and documented. In her photographs, videos, and performances, Cavaliere poignantly reflected on life and human connection, and consistently strove for an authenticity of experience, memory, and history through her work.

For Cavaliere, the years following the death of her mother in 2008 from ovarian cancer were shaped by grief. Her work responded to her mother’s death, and to her own illness and impending mortality when she was diagnosed with the same cancer a few years later. nest 2 2010 is the photographic documentation of Cavaliere’s performance nest, staged in 2010 and recorded on Super 8 film. In this work Cavaliere unpacks her mother’s clothing from a large white plastic shopping bag to construct a ‘nest’ atop a rocky cliff at Clovelly, Sydney. Cavaliere and her mother used to frequent Clovelly Beach and eat fish and chips. After emptying the bag, the artist reappears into the frame, sitting naked atop the clothes, pensively looking out to the ocean. She wears her mother’s stockings on her head which flutter in the ocean breeze, and it is this moment the photograph captures. Stockings are repeatedly used in Cavaliere’s work and are laden with symbolic connection to her mother as an effort to forge a physical connection to her, as Daniel Mudie Cunningham describes, ‘what her mother left behind became the raw material used to reattach the umbilical cord’.[i]

afterlife 2011 is one of the last works made by Cavaliere prior to her own death in 2012. It shows the large hourglass that Cavaliere had made in which to house her mother’s ashes with her own shadow in the background, connecting mother and daughter. Cavaliere explains:

Cavaliere was born in Sarteano, Italy in 1972, migrating to Australia in 1976 with her family. She completed a Master of Art (Photomedia) at the College of Fine Arts, Sydney (now UNSW Art & Design) in 1997. Cavaliere participated in solo and group exhibitions throughout Australia and overseas, including Italy in the World, Italian Pavilion, 54th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2011). Her work is held in public collections across Australia including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney and National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. The posthumous exhibition Katthy Cavaliere: Loved, curated by Daniel Mudie Cunningham was presented at the Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart in 2015 and Carriageworks, Sydney in 2016. To honour her legacy, Suspended Moment: The Katthy Cavaliere Fellowship was established in 2018.

The UNSW Art Collection holds two photographs and six videos of performances dating from 2000–2010 by Cavaliere.

FEATURED WORKS FROM THE UNSW ART COLLECTION

RESOURCES

Katthy Cavaliere | artist website

Katthy Cavaliere | Katthy Cavaliere by Daniel Mudie Cunningham