Kate Groobey portrays her personal experiences and explores the androcentric cannon of painting from a feminist, queer perspective using the tactics of British humour - innuendo, parody, absurdity, surreality, macabre, self-deprecation. Across vibrant gestural paintings, live performance, and video, Groobey brings to life the two-dimensional world of her paintings by dressing up as her central characters. Wearing painted costumes, and using handmade props, she choreographs grotesque dances to self-composed music in front of painted paper backdrops. Brilliant colour seduces and humour disarms the spectator as Groobey affirms her presence in a male dominated artistic tradition.
Kate Groobey (b. 1979, Leeds, UK) lives and works in Yorkshire, UK and the South of France.
Solo Exhibitions
2024
Always Love, Sim Smith, London, UK
2022
Female Stallion, Sim Smith, London, UK
2020
Start Again, Sim Smith, London, UK
2019
Assholes Of Ambition, RIBOT, Milan, Italy
Pure Pleasure, Atopos with Ikon Galley, Venice, Italy
2017
I'm Made of Milk, Horton Gallery, New York, USA
The Good Life, Ever Gold Projects, San Francisco, USA
2016
Perfect Potatoes, Redling Fine Art, Los Angeles, USA
2015
Perfect | Parfait performance, David Lynch Club Silencio, Paris, France
2014
Ofr. Invites Kate Groobey, Paris, France
Selected Group Exhibitions
2023
UNTITLED Miami Beach, Sean Horton Miami
Looking Like Fire, Sim Smith, London
2022
Prospect and Refuge, Sim Smith, London, UK
2021
Collection in Action, NOMUS - New National Museum in Gdansk, Poland
Wild Horses, Sim Smith, London, UK
Queen & Country, Art Car Boot Fair, London, UK
2020
Faster Than Ever, IKON, Birmingham, UK
Super Flatland, White Conduit Projects, London, UK, curated by Paul Carey-Kent
2019
What Kind of Spirit Is This?, Sim Smith, London, UK
2018
Played, Ebensperger Galerie, Salzburg, Austria
Desires, GNYP Gallery, Berlin, Germany
2017
UNTITLED, ART Miami, with Horton Gallery, USA
2016
SURRREAL, König Galerie, Berlin, Germany
NADA, Ever Gold Projects, NYC
The Classical, Transition Gallery, London, UK
Performance Night & Party, Code South Way, Marseille, France, curated by Emmanuelle Luciani
Art16, Villa Lena Foundation, London, UK
2014
100 Painters of Tomorrow, Beers London, UK
2013
I did did I, ASC Gallery, London, UK, curated by Kes Richardson
2012
The Perfect Place To Grow: 175 Years of the Royal College of Art, London, UK
Making Waves: International Contemporary Art from the Saatchi Gallery, London, UK
Backwards Man, CGP London, Cafe Gallery, London, UK
2011
Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2011, ICA London & Site Gallery, S1 Artspace, Sheffield, UK
2010
Newspeak: British Art Now Part II, Saatchi Gallery, London, UK
Awards
DYCP funding, Arts Council England
Daiwa Foundation Art Prize, London/Tokyo
2008
Stanley Smith Scholarship, Royal College of Art
Education
2008 - 2010
MA Painting, Royal College of Art, London, UK
1997 - 2000
BFA Ruskin School of Drawing & Fine Art, Oxford University, Pembroke College, UK