Prendergast, Kathy (1958- )

Irish contemporary artist. Using a huge range of media, she deals mainly with issues relating to the female body. She has received a number of awards, including the Carroll's Award at the 1980 Exhibition of Living Art for Waiting (1980; Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin), a Henry Moore Sculpture Fellowship (1986), and a prize for outstanding young artist at the Venice Biennale, Italy (1995).

Among Prendergast's best-known work is a series of drawings entitled To Control a Landscape (1983; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin) in which she represents her own body as a map, depicting it in terms of contours and its bodily functions as a series of mechanical apparatus. More recent projects such as The End and the Beginning have been inspired by the birth of her daughter and show her employing a more surreal means of expression. Prendergast was born in Dublin.