Catherine Elwes (born 1952) is a British artist, curator and critic working predominantly in the field of

video art Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting ...

and a significant figure in the British

feminist art Feminist art is a category of art associated with the late 1960s and 1970s feminist movement. Feminist art highlights the societal and political differences women experience within their lives. The hopeful gain from this form of art is to bri ...

movement. She was born in

St Maixent Saint-Maixent () is a commune in the Sarthe department in the region of Pays de la Loire in north-western France. See also *Communes of the Sarthe department The following is a list of the 354 communes of the Sarthe department of France. The ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. She studied at the

Slade School of Fine Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

and later graduated with an MA in Environmental Media from the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offe ...

. She began working with video in the late 1970s. In 1979 Elwes performed ''Menstruation II,'' a three-day performance at

the Slade The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

which lasted for the duration of a menstrual period. She co-curated the exhibitions ''Women’s Images of Men'' (with Jacqueline Morreau) and ''About Time'' (with

Rose Garrard Rose Garrard (born 21 September 1946, Bewdley, Worcestershire, England) is an installation, video and performance artist, sculptor, and author. Garrard's works have been exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Tate Gallery, the British C ...

and

Sandy Nairne Alexander Robert "Sandy" Nairne (born 8 June 1953) is an English historian and curator. From 2002 until February 2015 he was the director of the National Portrait Gallery, London. Life and career Nairne is the son of senior civil servant Sir P ...

) at the ICA in 1980. She was the director of the biennial ''UK/Canadian Film & Video Exchange'' (1998-2006) at the

South London Gallery The South London Gallery, founded 1891, is a public-funded gallery of contemporary art in Camberwell, London. Until 1992, it was known as the South London Art Gallery, and nowadays the acronym SLG is often used. Margot Heller became its direct ...

and co-curator of ''Figuring Landscapes'' (2008-2010), an international screening exhibition on themes of landscape. Elwes has written extensively about feminist art, performance, installation, landscape and the moving image and is author of ''Video Loupe'' (K.T. Press, 2000), ''Video Art, a guided tour'' (I.B. Tauris, 2005), ''Installation and the Moving Image'' (Wallflower/Columbia University Press, 2015) and ''Landscape and the Moving Image'' (Intellect Books, 2022). Elwes is Founding Editor of the '' Moving Image Review & Art Journal'' (''MIRAJ'', Intellect Books) and has contributed to numerous anthologies, journals, exhibition catalogues and periodicals including ''Art Monthly'', ''Third Text'', ''MIRAJ'', the ''Millennium Film Journal'', ''Time Out'', ''Independent Media'', ''Performance Magazine'', ''Variant'', ''Filmwaves'' (of which she was an editor), ''Vertigo'' and ''Contemporary Magazine''. Elwes’ video practice is archived at

LUX The lux (symbol: lx) is the unit of illuminance, or luminous flux per unit area, in the International System of Units (SI). It is equal to one lumen per square metre. In photometry, this is used as a measure of the intensity, as perceived by the ...

online and

REWIND Rewind may refer to: General uses * Rewind, the process of winding magnetic tape inside a cassette or a microfilm reel backwards to a previous point on the reel ** Rewind symbol, a media control symbol indicating tape rewind or analogous operatio ...

. Elwes taught art for many years and was director of the early Digital Editing Research Programme at

Camberwell College of Art Camberwell College of Arts is a public tertiary art school in Camberwell, in London, England. It is one of the six constituent colleges of the University of the Arts London. It offers further and higher education programmes, including postgra ...

in London. She retired as Professor of Moving Image Art from

Chelsea College of Art Chelsea College of Arts is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London based in London, United Kingdom, and is a leading British art and design institution with an international reputation. It offers further and higher educat ...

in 2017. She now lives in Oxford.

Notable artworks

* Menstruation II (1979), Slade College of Art * Kensington Gore (1982) * The critic's informed viewing (1982) * First House (1986) * Post-card (1986)

External links

Catherine Elwes at LUX Online

Catherine Elwes at REWIND

References

Living people 1952 births Women video artists British women curators British video artists British curators Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art Alumni of the Royal College of Art 20th-century British artists 20th-century British women artists 21st-century British artists 21st-century British women artists {{UK-artist-stub