I learnt to paint, think, and write while undertaking my degree in Fine Art in the North of England. I was the first in my family to go to University, I hold a PhD in feminism and art history (2002, Leeds) and joined York St John University as Lecturer in Contextual Studies in 2006. I am now the Professor of the history, theory, and practice of art at York St John University.
I have taught critical and cultural theory, and the history of art to practice-based students for more than 20 years. My approach to teaching is very much indebted to my own experience of University as the first in my family to go. I tell students that what they have achieved so far is only a measure of the opportunities they have been given, not an indication of their potential, and work hard to help them develop learner confidence.
My teaching is very closely informed by my research which covers drawing, painting, photography, sculpture and sculptural installation in the 20th and 21st centuries. This work is supported by my knowledge of art and its history from classical antiquity to the present.
I welcome enquiries about traditional and practice-based PhD supervision in the following areas:
- The politics of art and education
- The body politic, difference (class, gender, race and sexuality), and art practice
- Art and in the era of neoliberalism
- The primacy of the visual in contemporary art
- Site specific practice and the significance of place
My research is the product of a fascination with the processes and materials of art, which transform artistic protocols, culture, history, and society. My attention to the historical specificity of art making is marked by my desire to read for the way in which artworks negotiate experiences that have been marginalised and/or silenced by dominant ideologies. As a result, my research has considered the felt experience and theoretical questions posed by ethnicity, gender and sexuality, and social class within the contexts of cultural memory, displacement, education, migration, trauma, and neoliberalism.
Recent publications
- Member of the National Art Education Archive (UK) Steering Group and Working Group.
- Member of the Research Innovation and Knowledge Exchange Alliance, Council of Higher Education for Art and Design.
