Institute of Art Design + Technology
Dún Laoghaire

Camille Peat 

BA [Hons] Art

Camille Peat is a visual artist currently practicing in Dublin, Ireland. Her artwork mostly uses large-scale sculptural installation to explore and experiment within the realms of prosthesis, metamorphosis and mimesis. She is interested in exploring the notion of the prosthetic imagination. Her work largely consists of material investigation through process-based experimentation, finding contrasting substances to augment and expand upon. She has exhibited in group shows such as The Place Project, IMMA and IADT collaboration (2021), Protézis at Magyar Képzőművészeti Egyetem (2023) and In The Making: Navel at Pallas Projects (2024).

Project Description

My practice aims to examine the notion of the prosthetic imagination; the interrelation of prosthetics and aesthetics. The work looks at the philosophical entanglements of the body and its possibilities, extensions and additions. This aims to investigating how autonomy over human anatomy helps us to expand, redefine or re-imagine our bodies in new forms and ways, both mental and physical, as it has, is and always will be in a state of growth and change. My practice is further focused on the themes of metamorphosis and mimesis, a transformation of the form or nature of a thing or person into a completely different one, as well as imitation and representation. The work seeks to express these ideas through the examination of prosthesis.


The Trajectory of Prosthetics within Art: An Enhancement for the Future

My thesis analyses and examines artworks from the 1960s all the way through to the 2010s, that have been informed by each decade’s ideas and beliefs and that are in relation to the trajectory of prosthetics within art and its enhancement for the future. This thesis distinguishes and differentiates the scope of prosthesis within art as well as delving into prosthetic creativity and its boundaries or lack thereof, and how each chosen artist and artwork can be considered an improvement for our future. The prosthetics within art talked about in this thesis range in multiple different mediums, from architectural based prosthetic art to full bodily prosthetic transformation art, and that are all particularly in relation to the Cyborgian, Hybridisation, additions, extensions, technology and the body. The aims of my thesis are to show the reader that the topic of prosthetics is not only intended in relation to the human body and its usual term of an artificial body part or referring to a device or implant that is an artificial replacement for an impaired body part, but also that of a mental and philosophical prosthetic, the correlations between prosthesis that express to us a meshing of metaphysical, autonomy and our anatomy and its extensions, additions and architecture that help us to expand, redefine or reimagine our bodies in new forms and ways, both mental and physical, as it always will be in a metamorphosing state of being and fundamentally abstract concept in the making, mimicry and expression of art and its re-presentation.