One of Australia’s most respected contemporary artists, Kathy Temin (b.1968) is well known for her distinctive use of faux fur to create monumental sculptures that explore memory, history and loss. The artist’s signature choice of medium, synthetic fur, subverts the monumental scale of her sculptures to draw allusions to softness, childhood and play. Temin’s work came into prominence within Australia and internationally in the 1990s combining oppositional dialogues, such as minimalism with sentimentality, remembrance with play. Temin’s work engages with cultural identity through material and pop culture, 1970s architecture, interior decoration and art history, craft activities and site specificity.
Temin has exhibited widely across Australia, including major institutional shows such as Marking Memory, Melbourne Holocaust Museum, Melbourne (2026); The Koala Room, The Bella commission for the National Centre for Creative Learning at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) 2016; My Monument: White Forest, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, and Sydney (2014); and My Monument: Black Garden, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2010-2011). She has also participated in group exhibitions nationally and internationally, including A Space Between, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne (2024); Know My Name: Australian Women Artists 1900 to Now, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2020); Space Makers and Room Shakers: Installations from the Collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2018); Soft Core, curated by Michael Do, Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Sydney (2016); Australia, Royal Academy of Arts, London (2013); and Soft Sculpture, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2009).
Her work is held in numerous collections across Australia, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, Art Gallery of South Australia, and Heide Museum of Modern Art.