Kate O’ Boyle

Confessions of a Critical Arts Practice

5

March 2020

5

Mar

2020

27

Mar 2020

7UP

Confessions of a Critical Arts Practice

Kate O’ Boyle

5

March 2020

5

March

2020

27

March 2020

7UP

Confessions of a critical arts practice (2020), documents a series of confessions made to Catholic priests about my attempts to engage in institutional critique. Raised Catholic, I experienced latent feelings of guilt as my practice took an increasingly critical stance towards the Church. What began as a sudden impulse to seek out some priestly advice, resulted in a year-long undertaking that saw me travel across Australia, seeking out absolution.What remains of my time in the confessional booth are hours of audio documenting my confessions. While the priests and I sat divided by the infamous grille, we managed to engage in discussions about the place of contemporary art in the Church, the differences between ethics and sin, and the contemporary Church’s stance on institutional critique.

Confessions of a critical arts practice (2020), documents a series of confessions made to Catholic priests about my attempts to engage in institutional critique. Raised Catholic, I experienced latent feelings of guilt as my practice took an increasingly critical stance towards the Church. What began as a sudden impulse to seek out some priestly advice, resulted in a year-long undertaking that saw me travel across Australia, seeking out absolution.What remains of my time in the confessional booth are hours of audio documenting my confessions. While the priests and I sat divided by the infamous grille, we managed to engage in discussions about the place of contemporary art in the Church, the differences between ethics and sin, and the contemporary Church’s stance on institutional critique.

Kate O’ Boyle

Kate O’Boyle is an artist and arts writer based in Narrm/Melbourne working across installation, sculpture, performance and digital media. Kate’s practice considers the role materiality plays in acts of divinity and acts of worship. Touch as a conduit of the divine is of particular interest to her research. Kate has exhibited at Channels festival, Seventh Gallery, Critical Path, Site Eight, FELTspace, KINGS ARI, Holy Rollers and the National Art School. She has been awarded several academic scholarships, the Blau Trust award, the James Martin Award for Outstanding Graduate and the Guildhouse/FELTspace Graduate Award.