Art

“All that I desire to point out is the general principle

that Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life, and I feel

sure that if you think seriously about it you will find that it is

true. ”

— Oscar Wilde, The Decay of Lying

My focus is on non Euro-centric art, pop art, the functional uses of art, sound and music in art, and the visual arts of performance and cinematic traditions.

Previous research topics have included:

  • the role of art in the formation of the National Parks Service

  • the reflection of the cold war in pop media

  • the role of women in the revolutionary musics of Zimbabwe

  • the role of music in Piet Mondrian's abstract art

  • the way music is represented in image by Winslow Homer in his early engravings

  • how Indigenous-Canadian performance art is reacting to Canadian “reconciliation”


I have completed a music minor with a focus in ethnomusicology and have been fortunate to work with talented musicians and researchers in that field. Ethnomusicology presents art history with questions such as:

  • How do we consider the treatment of instruments in museum spaces? (Are instruments in museum collections still playable? Is maintaining functionality part of preservation?)

  • Is wear and tear through function an important consideration of these ascetically valuable objects?

  • How do we convey the objects as not only visual but auditory and performative?

  • What role does sound and/or music play in art?