I am an art theorist, educator, researcher, critic and Professor of Art at Curtin University, Australia. 

 

Since 1997, I have taught art history at universities in Australia and Hong Kong and I am currently a Professor in Art at the School of Media, Creative Arts and Social Inquiry, Curtin University, Australia. 

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I am the Lead Investigator on the 'Art of Peace' project, a three-year ARC linkage project in partnership with the Art Gallery of Western Australia and the National Trust (NSW), with a team of researchers from University of NSW, University of Melbourne, University of the Arts London, Cal State LA and Oberlin College.  And was the Lead Investigator of the 2018-2021 'Art in Conflict' ARC linkage project with the Australian War Memorial and the National Trust (NSW), with a team of researchers from University of Melbourne, University of NSW and University of Manchester.  Together these two projects have been granted $729,364 from the ARC.  

 

I have won multiple awards for teaching, publish frequently in peer-reviewed and popular press (Artforum, Art & Australia, The Conversation). I am the author of Double War: Shaun Gladwell, visual culture and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (Thames & Hudson Australia) and co-author with Uroš Čvoro of Images of War in Contemporary Art (Bloomsbury, 2021) and The Trump Effect: Populism, Politics, and Paranoia in Contemporary Art and Visual Culture.  I am the lead editor of the third book from the 'Art in Conflict' project, The Politics of Art in War Zones: Art in Conflict (Bloomsbury, 2024).  

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I grew up in Wales, moved to Australia in 1990, and graduated with a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Honours Class 1) in 1994. I was awarded a PhD in Art History and Theory from the University of New South Wales in 2000, with a doctoral thesis examining the role of affect in political conflicts surrounding contemporary art in the 1990s.