My research focuses on the gendering of space, moving from an art historical re-framing of modernism to analogous spatial and gender restrictions in conflict narratives from the North of Ireland. My work encompasses writing and painting.

Writing

My essay Who Killed Marthe Bonnard (Journal of Contemporary Painting, 2018) re-positions the artist's depictions of the feminine, illness and domestic space as an expansion of modernism and its masculinist discourses. This research has been internationaally cited (De Witte Raaf, 2019) and has informed curatorial discourse, including a commissioned essay for the National Gallery of Victoria's major Bonnard retrospective (2024).

My current research work focuses on the art historical catgeorisation and institutional collection of Troubles Art. I have addressed the masculine bias of the conflict canon through my writing and curation. I was co-curator on Catherine McWilliams: Selected Works 1961-2021, a major retrospective exhibition and catalogue, F.E. McWilliam Gallery (2022), with a published essay in Irish Arts Review (2023).

I was awarded AHRC IAA funding (2023; 2024) to research women's artworks from the conflict years. This project has resulted in two refereed conference papers: Picturing the Conflict, Political Science Association of Ireland Annual Conference, (2023) and The Trouble with Troubles Art, Picturing Conflict Through a Digital Archive, Art Historians Annual Conference, (2024). I am currently working with Public Records Office Northern Ireland on developing an oral archive of women artists from the conflict years.

Painting

My painting practice explores gendered containment, subversive spaces and the intimate range of conflict. Midnight Feast was a major institutional solo exhibition (The MAC, Belfast, 2023). It was supported by the Arts Council Northern Ireland, with a scholarly exhibition essay by art historian Riann Coulter. Midnight Feast has also been the subject of critical analysis published by the Journal of Contemporary Painting (S. MacWilliam, 2024) and selected works were a visual chapter in Difficult Conversations, published by the British Council (2023). My paintings have achieved national and international esteem, including Pond Life (longlisted for the John Moore's Painting Prize 2022), Pond (After) Life (shortlisted, BEEP Painting Prize 2023) and Pond Nite Life (Jackson's Oil Award winner, 2024). My paintings are held in public collections including the Irish State Collection, Arts Council NI, and Ulster University. In 2024 I was one of the first artists from the North of Ireland purchased through ART-X UK Government Art Collection, a national acquisition initiative which recognises important regional art.