Kunstmuseum Brandts Odense: Rag & Bone →Until 06 Apr 2026
Freud Museum London: Housekeeper →29 Oct 2025 — 22 Feb 2026
Cathie Pilkington is an artist whose work engages passionately and critically 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. As a sculptor and assembler her practice is porous, often absorbing and integrating content from archives, collections and historic settings. Her site-responsive installations are balanced ambivalently between chaos and precision and have been described as a kind of art historical fly-tipping.
Recent situated projects include: Housekeeper (2025) at the Freud Museum, London, Anatomy of a Doll, in the Royal Academy Life Room (2016) and Life Room: Working from Home (2019), which made interventions in the display of the permanent collections of Dorich House Museum and Pallant House Gallery. Recent solo exhibitions include Rag & Bone, Kunstmuseum Brandts, Denmark (2025-26) and Weird Horses, Karsten Schubert, London (2023).
Born in Manchester 1968. Lives and works in Bethnal Green, London
| 1995 - 1997 | Royal College of Art, MA Sculpture |
| 1985 - 1991 | Edinburgh College of Art, BA Silversmithing |
| 1984 - 1985 | North Cheshire College, Foundation |
| 2025-26 | Rag & Bone, Kunstmuseum Brandts, Odense, Denmark. |
| 2025 | Housekeeper, Freud Museum, London |
| 2023 | Weird Horses, Room 2, Karsten Schubert, London |
| 2021 | Estin Thalassa, Room 2, Karsten Schubert, London |
| 2020 | The Covering, Room 2, Karsten Schubert, London |
| 2020 | The Ancestors, Macaulay Gallery Royal Academy of Art, London |
| 2019 | Working from Home, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester |
| 2018 | Life Room: Working from Home, Studio residency, Dorich House Museum, Kingston, London |
| 2017 | Life Room: Anatomy of a Doll, Royal Academy Schools Life Room, London |
| 2017 | The Life Rooms, Brighton University Galleries Brighton Festival |
| 2017 | Doll for Petra, Ditchling Museum of Art and Crafts, Sussex |
| 2014 | Thing-Soul, Marlborough Fine Art, London |
| 2012 | The Value of the Paw, V&A Museum of Childhood, Bethnal Green, London |
| 2010 | Peaceable Kingdom, Marlborough Fine Art, London |
| 2007 | White Elephant, Marlborough Fine Art, London. |
| 2005 | Garden, Program Gallery, London2004 I’m a Winner! The Apartment, Athens2004 Curio, Space Station 65, London2003 Homunculus, The Economist Plaza, London2000 Short Stories, Galway Arts Centre, Ireland1998 Viva Chihuahua! Prema Uley, Gloucestershire |
| 2024 | Material Girls and their Muses, Marcelle Joseph Projects at Vitrine Gallery, Fitzrovia |
| 2024 | Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood, Hayward Gallery Touring |
| 2024 | Studio Floor, Cubitt, London |
| 2024 | Immortal Apples, Eternal Eggs, Hastings Contemporary |
| 2015 | Thirteen Blackbirds Looked at a Man, Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff |
| 2012 | Never Promised Pound Land, No Format Gallery, Woolwich, London |
| 2010 | Bedizzened, APT, London |
| 2009 | Three Women, Arque, Lisbon |
| 2008 | That’s Entertainment, Whitstable Biennale, Kent |
| 2007 | The Craft, Transition Gallery, London |
| 2006 | The Craft, The Metropole Gallery, Folkstone |
| 2005 | Engerland! OneOtwo The Tea Buildings, London |
| 2003 | Emporium, Domo Baal, London |
| 2003 | Flock,The Model Arts Centre, Sligo, Ireland |
| 2002 | Off the Leash, Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield |
| 2001 | For the Love of Dog, Battersea Pumphouse Gallery, London |
| 2001 | Auras and Avatars, The First Public School, Hydra, Greece |
| 2001 | Animal, The Collective Gallery, Edinburgh |
| 1999 | Dub Housing, Steirscher Herbst 99, Austria |
| 1998 | False Economy, Gasworks, London |
| 1997 | Kettle, Blue Gallery, Beaumont, Luxembourg |
| 1991 | The Ark, Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh |
| 2024 | Bridget Riley Fellowship, British School at Rome |
| 2019 | Keeper of the Royal Academy Schools, London |
| 2015 | Professor of Sculpture Royal Academy Schools. |
| 2014 | Elected Royal Academician, Royal Academy of Art, London |
| 2014 | Sunny Dupree Award for Women, Royal Academy of Art, London |
| 1997 | Fine Art Research Fellowship, Cheltenham and Gloucester College |
| 1991 | John Watson Prize, Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh |
Royal Academy of Art, London; Pallant House Gallery, Chichester; DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art, Athens; Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester; The Huntarian, Glasgow; Omer Koc Collection and the Roberts Institute of Art.
| 2019 - present | Keeper of the Royal Academy Schools, London |
| 2015 - 2019 | Professor of Sculpture, Royal Academy Schools, London |
| 2000 - 2004 | Camberwell College of Art, London |
| 1997 - 2000 | Cheltenham and Gloucester College of Art |
| 1991 - 1995 | Edinburgh College of Art |
| 1991 - 1995 | Leith School of Art |