Teaching Practice

My practice is guided by a ‘drawing out and leading fourth’ approach conceived by Ault and Beck (2012). Through an extended and interconnected meaning-making system, I strive to develop opportunities for my students to consider the social and cultural dimensions of a fine art practice.

Leading through a student-centred approach, I place student engagement at the centre of my practice. I strive to create learning opportunities of higher order thinking, implementing a range of interactive, collaborative and creative activities for my students.

Central to my teaching practice is the importance I place in supporting the learning of my students and providing opportunities for deeper subject engagement. Reflecting on the material and process nature of fine art, I support my students through a process-focussed approach. Informed by the notion that knowing and doing are intertwined, I work in partnership with my students. Through developing learning experiences that speak to the material and conceptual territory of their practice, I provide opportunities for students to experience first-hand the multi-faceted nature of the discipline.

Shaped by Edmondson’s model of Psychological Safety (2018), I aim to facilitate an environment in which students can excel. Founded on the principles of trust, respect, empathy and compassion, I strive to create a culture whereby students are free to act as individuals, feeling confident to freely engage in and contribute to learning opportunities, expressing themselves and their views without fear of judgement.

Central to both a personal and professional approach, the education of art remains an important facet to my practice, being a passionate advocate for the importance of an art education. Having held a number of teaching positions across a range of education environments, including universities and international summer schools, I remain committed to the importance of creative-play and experimentation, with an emphasis on collaboration and shared experience.

Fundamental to my pedagogy is a belief in the importance of art as a vessel for change and education in society and culture as a whole. Through my teaching I strive to instil an engagement and awareness in my students, alongside a receptiveness to art’s social, political and cultural responsibility and power.

Interested in chance and indeterminacy as alternatives to the deliberate agency of the artist, my research interests consider the pedagogical potential of chance procedure. Exploring the generative capacity of chance and indeterminacy in producing unforeseen possibilities and aesthetic forms, the results of these approaches provide much scope to be pursued and incorporated determinately in intentional approaches. In addition to the conceptual territory of chance and indeterminacy and the entailing themes of intention, remain both pertinent and interesting themes within both a fine art and multidisciplinary context and heavily inform my teaching practice.

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