About

Kate Antosik-Parsons is an art historian and visual artist originally from the San Francisco Bay Area. Her art practice is concerned with memory and identity. Originally trained as a painter and printmaker, Kate is interested in process and the physicality that accompanies the process of creating. Many of her earlier works incorporate text, images and found materials such as fabrics that build layers of meaning. She is particularly intrigued by the ways in which these materials absorb and transmit familial memory and history. Her visual sensibilities were encouraged by her grandmother, Marcelina Antosik, a landscape painter. More recently, her work had shifted to incorporate photography and has focused on maternal subjectivity. Her research, teaching and visual practice is expressly informed by feminism.

Kate studied painting and printmaking at St. Mary’s College, Moraga.  She participated in the Annual Student Art Show (1999-2001). In 2003 she held her first solo show ‘Identity’ in the Front Lounge, Dublin, Ireland. After this exhibition she acquired a Polymetaal JS-60 printing press enabling her to continue experimenting with different print processes. She has completed several commissions: a drypoint for the American Association of University Women, East Bay Branch (2000) and three monoprints for Northgate Information Solutions, Dublin Ireland (2005). Her work has featured in group exhibitions ‘A Womb of One’s Own’ Oldcastle, Co. Meath (2008) and ‘Between Places and Spaces: Landscapes of Liminality’, Long Room Hub, Trinity College Dublin (June 2014). Her performative photographs will be exhibited in Still Life, Gibney Dance, NYC (June 27-29 2019)- a collaborative performance constructed from a participatory workshop organised by the art collective Our Women Before Us. Kate's artwork has appeared in Intersections: Women’s and Gender Studies in Review Across Disciplines, Journal of University of Texas (2007) and featured on the covers of two books.

Kate is a postdoctoral researcher at NCAD on a performance art in Ireland in the 1990s project as part of L'Internationale's 'Our Many Europes'. Kate is also a Research Fellow in Social Sciences in the School of Social Work and Social Policy at Trinity College Dublin. She is also a research associate of the UCD Humanities Institute (formerly the Humanities Institute of Ireland). Her interests include modern and contemporary art, gender, sexuality, identity, embodiment, memory, community arts, performance studies, Irish studies, literary and cultural studies.  Kate’s current research is focused on maternal embodiment and reproductive politics in Ireland. 

Kate holds a BA in Art from Saint Mary’s College, Moraga California (2001) and an MA in Women’s Studies from University College Dublin (2006). In 2012 she completed her PhD in the School of Art History and Cultural Policy, University College Dublin entitled ‘Remembering and Forgetting: Memory and Gender in Contemporary Irish Time-Based Art’. Kate was a doctoral scholar in the Graduate Research and Education Programme (GREP) in Gender, Culture and Identity (IRCHSS funded). 

Kate has presented her research at numerous conferences including College Art Association (USA), Association of Art Historians (UK), National Women’s Studies Association (USA) and American Conference for Irish Studies (USA). In 2009 Kate worked with the Millennium Court Arts Centre (Portadown, NI) to conduct primary research for the commissioned Guerrilla Girls Project: Ireland. From 2010 to 2013 Kate was an editor of the peer-reviewed Artefact: Journal of the Irish Association of Art Historians. In 2012-13 she chaired the Per Cent for Art committee at Gaelscoil Cholmcille, an Irish language immersion primary school, for a commissioned artwork. She is a member of various professional organisations such as CAA, AAH, IAAH, ACIS, AT Gender, Visual Artists Ireland and the Irish Studies Memory Network.

Kate is a reproductive rights activist and a co-convener of the Research Working Group, Dublin Bay North Choice and Equality Network. This research cohort is tasked with documenting, collecting and archiving material from the Repeal the 8th Amendment campaign specific to Dublin Bay North. The DBN Research Working Group is currently engaged in quantitative and qualitative research, oral histories, mapping projects and DBN media and outreach projects that reflect upon and critically engage the development of the Dublin Bay North Repeal the 8th/ Together for Yes constituency-based campaign and referendum victory. The first academic publication of the research group is due out in 'After Repeal' eds. Kath Browne and Sydney Calkin (Zed Books, 2020).