My PhD studies the artists who worked and studied together at London's Royal College of Art from 1958-1963, including Frank Bowling, Pauline Boty, Derek Boshier, Allen Jones, RB Kitaj, Patrick Caulfield, and David Hockney. Their work is typically classified as British Pop Art, but I argue that the term has obscured their distinctive achievements and resulted in errors of periodisation.

Juxtaposing the simulacral postmodernism of Pop proper to the late modernism of my Royal College group, I position the work of these artists at a crucial juncture in 20th-century history. In turn, it becomes possible to trace their varied and sophisticated responses to the seismic developments of the mid-century, weaving a story which stretches from angst of the Cold War to the myths and realities of the Sexual Revolution. 

My methodology combines the social history of art with theoretically-driven observation. I am especially interested in Lacanian psychoanalysis and its critical legacies for contemporary feminist, post-colonial, queer, and political theory. 

I hold a Masters in the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, and undergraduate degrees in Law and Economic History.

My research is co-supervised at the University of Exeter and funded by the SWW DTP consortium of the AHRC.