Kate Breakey | Australian, 1957 -
Since 1980, her work has appeared in more than 60 one-person exhibitions
and in over 50 group exhibitions in the United States, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and
France. A native of South Australia, Kate moved to Austin, Texas in 1988. She
completed a Master of Fine Art Degree at the University of Texas in 1991, where she also
taught Photography in the Department of Art and Art History until 1998. In 1999, she
relocated to Tucson, Arizona. Breakey's work is held in many public collections, including
The Australian National Gallery in Canberra, the Center for Creative Photography in
Tucson, Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, the Austin Museum
of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and The Wittliff Galley of Southwestern &
Mexican Photography, who have collected over 150 works by Breakey since 1999.
In 2004, she received the 'Photographer of the Year' Award from the Houston Center for
Photography.
Of her photographs she tells of her desire to, "tenderly record the beautiful bodies now in transition towards decomposition and disintegration."
In 2001, the first monograph on Breakey's work was published by the University of Texas
Press. It contains 81 color images from her ongoing 'Small Deaths' series, with a foreword
by noted art critic A.D. Coleman. Her second book, Flowers/Birds, (Eastland Book) was
published in March 2003.