Katy Deepwell


Katy Deepwell is a feminist art critic and academic, based in London. She is the founder and editor of n.paradoxa: international feminist art journal, published 1998–2017, in 40 volumes by KT press. She founded KT press as a feminist not-for-profit publishing company to publish the journal and books on feminist art. KT press has published 8 e-books, supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. In Feb 2017, Katy Deepwell wrote and published a MOOC on feminism and contemporary art at. In May 2020, a second advanced course on feminist art manifestos was added to the site. The model for both MOOCs is FemTechNet’s DOCC: Distributed Open Collaborative Course.
The journal was part of the Documenta 12 Magazines Project in 2007. n.paradoxa is an art magazine which publishes articles on women artists from around the world. The journal released all articles as open access PDFs in 2018, and continued to produce The Feminist Art Observatory, listing information about contemporary women artists and feminism.
She was President of the British Section of AICA, 1997–2000. She was Chair of Trustees of Women's Art Library, London, 1989–1994, a national charity and library on women artists which closed in 2002, now housed at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Her work has been centred on the promotion of feminism in relation to the contemporary art and art criticism.

Early life and education

Deepwell trained as an artist at St Martins School of Art, 1982–1985. She then obtained a M.A. Social History of Art from University of Leeds in 1986 and a PhD from Birkbeck College, University of London in 1991.

Works

Academic work

Deepwell is a former Professor of Contemporary Art, Theory and Criticism at Middlesex University, 2013-Feb 2025. Katy Deepwell has taught since 1986 in different Universities in UK and Europe. Her last post was as Reader in Contemporary Art, Theory and Criticism and Head of Research Training at University of the Arts London.
She has worked as a lecturer teaching art history and art theory in universities including Goldsmiths' College, Oxford Brookes University, Kent Institute of Art and Design and University of Copenhagen since 1986. She was a Leverhulme Research Fellow in 2008–2009. In 2021, she was awarded a Distinguished Feminist Scholar award as an art critic by College Art Association in USA.

Publications and editorial works

3 Sole Authored:
  • Women Artists Between the Wars: ‘A Fair Field and No Favour’ .
  • Dialogues: Women Artists from Ireland..
  • Ten Decades: The Careers of Ten Women Artists born 1897-1906, Exhibition Catalogue of Arts Council Touring Exhibition, Norwich Gallery, NIAD, April 1992,
11 Edited volumes:
  • Conversations on Art, artworks and feminism
  • De-/Anti-/Post-colonial Feminisms in Contemporary Art and Textile Crafts
  • 50 Feminist Art Manifestos
  • Feminist Art Activisms and Artivisms
  • All-Women Art Spaces in Europe in the Long 1970s
  • Feminist Art Manifestos: An Anthology https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PBBVLQU
  • The Gender, Theory and Art Anthology: 1970-2000
  • Women Artists and Modernism. .
  • Art Criticism and Africa
  • New Feminist Art Criticism: Critical Strategies – also translated to Spanish: Nueva Critica Feminista de Arte.
Recent essays
  • 'The Politics and Aesthetic Choices of Feminist Art Criticism' Arts Special Issue on ‘Beyond/Around Feminist Aesthetics’, March 2023.
  • ‘Art Criticism and the State of Feminist Art Criticism’ Arts Special Issue on ‘State of Art Criticism’, Feb 2020.
  • ‘Why 1989? Writing about feminism, art and “the global contemporary”’ in Elvan Zabunyan et al, Constellations Subjectivités. Pour une Histoire Féministes de L'Art
  • ‘Postdigital Education, Feminism, Women’ Postdigital Education
  • ‘Art Criticism and Africa: AICA Conference at the Courtauld Institute, London, 1996’ in Jean-Marc Poinsot and Henry Meyric Hughes A Celebration of AICA’s 70th Anniversary / Une Célébration du 70ème anniversaire de l’AICA: 1949-50 – 2019-20. The Histories of AICA, continued.
  • ‘n.paradoxa’s MOOC : A case study in feminist online pedagogies’ for Gail Crimmins Strategies for Resisting Sexism in the Academy : Higher Education, Gender and Neoliberalism
  • Interview with Silvia Ziranek: ‘I enjoy appearance, colour, shape and form – and I love dressing up’ Studio International online, September 2019.
  • ‘On feminist art manifestos’ Cambridge Literary Review, no. 11 pp. 121–132
  • ‘Feminist contributions to artworks in Slide-Tape’ in Mo White Slide-Tape
  • ‘Feminist Critique: Open and Critical Enquiry: A Conversation between Katy Deepwell and Suzana Milevska’ in Spaces for Criticism pp. 171–192.
  • ‘Women Artists in/out of Vorticism’ in G. Berghaus International Yearbook of Futurism Studies pp. 21–43
  • ‘We don’t need another heroine: Sanja Ivekovic’s Counter-Narratives’ in Helena Reckitt Sanja Ivekovic: Unknown Heroine - A Reader pp. 110–133
  • ‘Beatrice Cussol: Feminist, not feminine’ in Mia Sundberg Beatrice Cussol: Rude Girls pp. 35–45
  • 'Questioning the gender order: feminist interventions in aesthetics and cultural politics' Artistic Production and the Feminist Theory of Art: New Debates 3 Basque, pp. 30–42; Spanish pp. 150–164; English, pp. 270–282.
  • 'Claims for a Feminist Politics in Painting' in Anne Ring Petersen Contemporary Painting in Context pp. 139–160
  • 'Cooling out on Post-Feminism' in Sabine Schaschl, Bettina Steinbrugge, and Rene Zechlin Cooling Out: On the Paradox of Feminism
  • Mehr also sieben dringender Fragen zum Feminismusí in Gisela Weimann Geteilte Zeit: Fragen und Antworten. Text in German and English. pp. 237–243
  • * Republished as More than seven urgent questions for feminism online in English in n.paradoxa issue 20 online, April 2008
  • 'Women War Artists in the First World War in Britain' in Karen Brown Agency and Mediation amongst Women Artists between the Wars pp. 11–36
  • 'Feminist Models: Now and in the Future' in It's Time for Action About Feminism Migros Museum German pp. 43–63, English pp. 190–208
  • 'Issues in Feminist Curation: Strategies and Practices' in Janet Marstine An Introduction to New Museum Theory pp. 64–84
  • 'DÈfier l'indiffÈrence a la diffÈrence: les paradoxes de la critique d'art fÈministe' in Pierre-Henry Frangne & Jean-Marc Poinsot L'Invention de Critique D'Art pp. 191–205
  • 'Women, Representation and Speculations on the End of History Painting' for N.Green and P.Seddon History Painting Reassessed pp. 131–148
  • 'Text and Subtexts' in Binghui Huangfu Text and Subtext: Contemporary Art and Asian Women Earl-Lu Gallery, Lasalle-SIA College of Arts, Singapore. Book for International Touring Exhibition of Contemporary Asian Women Artists. Curator: Binghui Huangfu. pp. 33–41
  • 'Curating Feminist Histories' in Power Ekroth, Tove Helander Expositioner: Antologi On Utstallningsmediet: The Exhibition as an Artistic Medium Stockholm: Konstfack, 2000 published for the Sollentuna Art Fair, Stockholm. pp. 88–96