Though based in History and Philosophy of Art, my research and teaching are interdisciplinary and involve aspects of French art, film and literature of the 19th  and 20th century. My work examines questions of historiography and theories of art. I teach most of the core courses for the History & Philosophy of Art and Visual and Performed Arts degrees and also convene the Art and Film degree. Additionally, I am one of the School’s active curators and have organized a number of exhibitions over the past four years.  In addition to my academic work I have also published fiction and poetry.

I have close links to France and Italy where I have worked in collaboration with the University of Bologna to set up an Erasmus exchange programme and have acted on the Advisory Steering Committee for ACUME, a project based in the University of Bologna that explored questions of memory and representation in literature, film, politics and the visual arts. I have also worked on several projects with colleagues from the University of Amsterdam, where we also have an Erasmus exchange programme.

PhD, Courtauld Institute MA with Distinction, Courtauld Institute BA with 1st Class Honours, Middlesex University in English Literature and History of Art. 1989 Lecturer at Birkbeck College, University of London. 1992 Lecturer in History and Theory of Art, University of Kent.

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Books               Sunless (Chris Marker), Flicks Books, London, 1998

Impressionism, Andre Deutsch, London, 2008

Les Impressionnistes, Gründ, 2009

Degas (in press release date 31st March 2012)

Catalogues

Spectres of Painting, University of Kent Press, Canterbury, 2007

The Art of Lithography (co-authored with Stephen Bann) University of Kent Press, Canterbury, 2010

In Elysium ( co-authored with Ben Thomas) University of Kent Press, Canterbury, 2010

Portraits and a Dream: Art and Language 

Articles in Books and Journals  

"A Judgment on Judgment" in A Critique of Judgment in Film and Television, ed. Dennis Rothermel, Palgrave, due 2013.

“L’origine del frammento in Le Chef d’oeuvre inconnu di Balzac”,  in  Letteratura e arti visive, D. Meneghelli ed.  (2009)

“ The Melancholy Image: Chris Marker’s Cine-Essays and the Ontology of  the Photograph” (to be published in the proceedings from the Cine Essay symposium at Loughborough (J.Torney ed., Telling Stories, Cambridge Scholars Press, 2009))

““ In the Net of Brute Sense: Merleau Ponty’s Aesthetics”, in Shane Weller, Tom Baldwin and James Fowler eds., Flesh in the Text, Peter Lang, 2007.

"A Game That Must Be Lost: Chris Marker’s Level 5” in The Image and the Witness, ed. Francis Guerin and Roger Hallas, in press (Wallflower Press) 2007.

“Spectres of the Past: Jochen Gerz’s Public Monuments”  in E. Lamberti and V.Fortunati ed.  War and Representation, (Rodobi 2008).

“Une Chambre Mentale: Proust’s Solitude” in H. Hendrix ed., The Writer’s House, Routledge 2007).

“‘Frenhofer C’est Moi’; Cézanne and Balzac’s Le Chief d’oeuvre inconnu”, Cambridge Quarterly , Nov. 2006.      

“The Clothing of Clio: The Poetics of Chris Marker”, Film Studies, vol. 6  Summer 2005.

“ Death and the Maiden: Cindy Sherman's Untitled Film Stills”, in The Controversial Women's Body: Images and  Representations in Literature and Art, edited by V. Fortunati, A. Maria Lamarra e E. Federici, Bononia  University Press, 2004.

“Through A Veil: Reflections on the History of Australian Landscape Painting” in M. Balbari ed. Paesaggi australiani: Australian Landscapes,  Pendragon  Press, 2004, pp. 36-61.

“ Leaving L’Estaque: Cézanne’s Representations of Provence in the 1880s” Art on The Line, September 2003, pp. 1-20.

“ In the Spiral of Time”, in A. Hughes and A. Nobleeds., Phototextualities, , University of New Mexico Press, 2002.

“ Le Sang Provencal” in Journal of European Studies,  eds. N. Hallet and J. Montefiore, October 2002.

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My teaching covers a wide spectrum of areas. French Painting of the 19th century, examines the emergence of the modern tradition of art in relation to the widespread changes in France during the period of the revolution and romanticism. Courses like Reading the Image provide an overview of the western tradition of art, exploring questions of representation from the Renaissance to the mid-20th century, focusing on how artists have dealt with issues of time and space and the break from concepts of mimesis at the turn of the 20th century. In Picasso: The Study of a Single Artist, we look at the modern tradition through the work of arguably the most important and influential artist of the century, whose work pioneered and absorbed most of the most fertile developments in modern art. In Patronage and Cultural Organization, it is the institutional structure of the art world which is examined and in this course we look at questions about the organization of culture, museums and curatorial issues, as well as other features of the art world. In Art and Film, we look at the relationship between these two media, focusing on early avant garde painting and cinema, the evolution of arthouse film and the work of recent artists who have explored intermedia relationships between art and film. The Historiography of Art examines the history of the history of art itself and charts some of the different moments and tendencies in the development of the discipline.

HA 300 The Historiography of Art HA 505 French Painting   HA 507 Reading the Image  HA 511 Patronage and Cultural Organisation  HA 523 Independent Dissertation HA 556 Art and Film HA 530 Picasso

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Most of my research is related to areas I teach on. My primary research is on 19th century French art and the relationship between art and film in French in the 20th century. Curating shows in the School Gallery has allowed me to combine teaching and research in an innovative and practice based fashion.   The 19th and 20th century are important areas for understanding the origins of our culture today. France was an important focus of much modern art and also saw a flourishing in film and literature. Much of contemporary art might be seen as a working through of the implications of the work of artists from this period and their work expresses through its testimony many of the central experiences of modernity that shape our present horizons of thinking.

My approach to History of Art emphasizes an understanding of art within the broader arena of culture generally. I believe strongly in the need for students studying art to have an understanding of the ideas, literature and social issues of the period they are studying. Art History should be a broad and expansive subject that can tell us much about our history as well as about the history of artists, artistic movements and the great works of art. My teaching and research thus encourages an understanding of art that involves asking how art is influenced by cultural and historical factors but also how art in turn influences our understanding of the world.

I am currently working on several book projects on 19th century artists, including work on Paul Cézanne and Fantin-Latour, an influential painter associated  with the Symbolist movement at the end of the 19th century and a close friend of Edouard Manet. Other areas of my research continue my work on the French filmmaker Chris Marker, as well as various articles dealing with French art and culture.

I am an editor of the journal Art On the Line and have given a number of key note papers on Chris Marker, on whom I am considered a leading authority. I work in the capacity of a reader for many publishers and journals. I have also taught as a guest lecturer in Europe and Australia.

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Areas of postgraduate supervision I am interested in include:

French 19th century painting and sculpture, particularly the following: The history and historiography of Impressionism and Symbolism, 19th century metropolitan culture, landscape painting, orientalism, history painting and the nude, the relationship between painting, literature and theater.

I am also interest in projects dealing with artists and issues related to the history of 20th century avant garde art, especially the history of Cubism, Picasso and Braque , the aesthetics of collage and photomontage and Dada and Surrealism. I am also interested in projects of an interdisciplinary nature, particularly those dealing with aspects of French art and film, or art and literature.

Current research students:

Jordan Amirkhani: Francis Picabia Monika Rutecka: Socialist Realism in Poland c. 1945-1965

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