Cathie Pilkington’s work engages with the canonical history of figurative sculpture. Crossing the borders of traditional, modern and contemporary idioms, her work combines intensively modelled and painted sculptures within immersive installations comprising a diverse array of props, materials and studio furniture. Her site-responsive installations are balanced ambivalently between chaos and precision and have been described as a kind of art historical fly-tipping.

Challenging the representation of the female figure in the historical canon of sculpture is a core concern of Pilkington’s practice. Dazzle re-invents the iconic image of St. Sebastian as a tragic, ambiguous figure embodying suffering and rapture. Pilkington’s version is a powerful representation of gender fluidity. Characteristically merging reference points, she describes the work as an ‘op-sculpture-painting-hybrid, in which the figure’s open-mouthed silent scream blends the high drama of the Laocoon and the Ecstasy of St Theresa with the blankness of resuscitation dummies and target practice decoys’.

Pilkington has exhibited widely since graduating from the Royal College of Art in 1997, including many solo exhibitions at Marlborough Fine Art, London. In the past ten years she has shown her work at venues including the V&A Museum of Childhood, London, Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, Ditchling Museum of Art and Craft, Dorich House Museum, Pallant House Gallery and Karsten Schubert, London. Pilkington was elected a Royal Academician in 2014, held the position of Professor of Painting from 2015-2019 and in May 2020 was elected Keeper of the Royal Academy Schools.