HOBART.- Katthy Cavaliere: Loved is a retrospective of the Sydney artist (1972–2012) opening at the Museum of Old and New Art in Tasmania, that provides an insight into a private life presented to the public through objects; photographs, video documentation of performance pieces, and every-day, readymade things that are imbued with an aura of love and trauma.

Curated by Daniel Mudie Cunningham, Katthy Cavaliere: Loved assembles installations, videos, photographs, mixed media installations and more, to comprise a portrait of the artist through more than 15 major works from early to late career; 1998–2011.

“As much as her name was a typo”, says curator Daniel Mudie Cunningham, “Katthy was an artist who considered the mistakes, accidents and emptiness of existence, what she called ‘reality’s black tunnel of nothingness,’ as an imaginary space of wonder capable of suspending art and life.”

Katthy Cavaliere: Loved is the first public exhibition of two significant works; Empty Stockings: Full of Love (2010; performance installation comprised of her mother’s stockings, work uniform, piles of clothes, shredded bills, baskets, human hair, and other mementos with a recorded song from her family archive) and Afterlife (2011; photograph of a large hourglass containing the ashes of the her mother, with the artist’s shadow looming above it).

Mona’s Library Gallery and Round House also houses a number of performance installations, films and photographs, including katthy’s room (1998; performance installation, a life-size model of the artist’s childhood bedroom, viewable from above via steps to a raised platform), story of a girl (1999; selected toys remaining from a performance installation in which the artist laid out her childhood possessions on a sheet on the gallery floor, and gifted them to viewers with whom she interacted), Loved (2008; video of performance installation depicting the artist as a tap-dancing rag doll in a rubbish tip) and brown paper (2001; a performance installation where the artist sat inside a large cardboard box, and filled brown paper bags with breath). Cavaliere’s performance installations, videos, photographs and films are mnemonic devices that resonate with emotion.

Katthy Cavaliere (born 1972 in Sarteano, Italy; died 2012 in Sydney, Australia) migrated from Italy to Australia with her family when she was four years old. She attended the College of Fine Art at the University of NSW in Sydney and was a recipient of the Helen Lempriere Travelling Art Scholarship in 2000, enabling her studies in Italy at the Accademia di Belle Arti, Brera, Milano. Her video performance work, Loved, was included in The Venice Biennale, 2011.

It was Cavaliere’s desire to bring to light what she did not remember of her early years in Sarteano that motivated her lifelong project of packing, storing and transporting the wreckage of her personal possessions, and transforming it into art that has been exhibited in solo and group shows internationally.

Mona Co-Director of Exhibitions says Nicole Durling says, “What always struck me about Cavaliere’s work was her intensity to understand herself and the world around her. This made the exhibition Katthy Cavaliere: Loved a perfect fit for Mona.

“There is a remarkable honesty to her work where, almost shamelessly, she laid her soul bare. Yet there is no glimpse of narcissism in the work; it retains an innocence and a vulnerability. Mona is honoured to be the first venue for this exhibition and looks forward to our visitors experiencing Cavaliere’s unique voice."