Artist Statement
“Over years of experimental exploration, I have pushed the boundaries of conceptual inquiry and embraced new technologies, leading to the creation of seemingly disparate bodies of work. However, beneath the surface, there exist enduring themes that unify my artistic endeavors. My art revolves around the notions of bodily control, experiences of detachment and augmentation, and the seductive allure of pharmaceutical solutions promising to alter our emotions and behaviors with a mere pill. These themes probe the complexities of our relationship with our bodies and the tension between societal expectations and our innate selves. Through my work, I aim to confront the dichotomy between our instinctual nature and the external forces that seek to manipulate and mold us. I challenge the notion that a quick-fix chemical solution can harmonize our mind and body, often at odds with each other. Instead, I strive for a deeper alignment between the two, recognizing the intricate interplay between our physical and mental states. Ultimately, my hope is to spark contemplation and dialogue about the fundamental connections between our minds and bodies, inviting viewers to question the prevailing narratives surrounding health, identity, and the pursuit of well-being”
- Catherine Coady -
Curriculum vitae
In a world where contemporary art increasingly critiques the cultural anxieties of our time, Catherine Coady (*1962), known professionally as COADY, offers a piercing gaze into the seductive contradictions of modern society. Based in Melbourne, Australia, she is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans painting, sculpture, and installation, and whose work has been presented internationally at established art fairs, biennale programmes, as well as within institutional exhibitions and art foundations across multiple regions.
Her work investigates the emotional body — revealing how society’s pursuit of control often conceals deep fragility beneath a polished exterior. COADY’s artistic lens is shaped by a life lived across diverse cultures. Her early childhood in Singapore left an enduring impression of ritualistic opulence and saturated sensory experience. Vivid colour, intricate ornamentation, and the symbolic value of gold became embedded in her visual memory, later demonstrating itself in her practice as quiet signals of the sacred within the fractured. This early exposure nurtured a fascination with surface and spirituality.
Returning to Australia during her early teenage years, COADY found herself immersed in the culture of the 1970s and 1980s — an era defined by glossy advertising that promised women perfection and serenity, offering medication as the modern solution to problems. This duality — spirituality versus superficiality, control versus surrender — would become the bedrock of her practice.
With wit and clarity, she observes the restless theatre of the mind. Her practice draws attention to what usually remains unseen: the looping inner dialogues, the restless pulse of thought, the fragile masks we wear to appear composed while turmoil simmers beneath. Threaded through it all is the irony of life, where humour becomes a means of acknowledging the weight of being alive while keeping it light enough to be shared.
Her pill sculptures sharpen this inquiry. Executed with precision and elegance, they play with the fantasy of quick fixes — the idea that there might be a pill for everything: for youth, for meaning. COADY has spent nearly two decades developing conceptually and researching materials and fabrication processes to achieve these forms — a pursuit often driven by trial and error, refining industrial techniques to reach an immaculate and functional finish. At once seductive and ironic, they mirror society’s faith in pharmaceutical shortcuts while exaggerating it to the point of absurdity. Their humour lies in this overstatement: objects so serene, so immaculate, they almost dare you to believe the impossible.
By contrast, her paintings are expansive and psychologically charged, often unfolding over long periods of time. Bodies of work often develop across several years, each reflecting a particular period in her life. Built through layering, scraping, and reworking, every surface becomes a record of process — of decision, revision, and return. Fragments of text are scratched into the painted fields, reading like private mutterings: light in tone yet edged with unease. Gold recurs throughout: sometimes radiant and exposed, sometimes buried beneath paint, but always insistent in its quiet persistence.
At times, COADY’s sculptural vocabulary intersects directly with her painting. Embedded pill forms interrupt the gestural field, serving as anchors or intrusions — moments of symmetry within turbulence. Through this dialogue, her practice reveals the full human theatre: the hidden battles, the tension between suppression and expression, the nervous smile held in place while the storm rages within. COADY renders this duality — the mind’s chaos and the body’s composure — with wit and disarming precision. Her work foregrounds the precarious balance between external poise and the interior negotiations that continuously reshape it.