University of Cambridge
Supervised by Professor Alyce Mahon, University of Cambridge, and Sally Noall, Curator, Interpretation, Tate St Ives
October 2020 –
Ithell Colquhoun
Ages of Man
1944
My doctoral project is a study of the visual imagery and working practices of the British artist and occultist Ithell Colquhoun (1906-1988), by way of Tate’s recently expanded collection and archive of her work and related materials. I engage with Colquhoun’s archive to examine the ways in which she navigated the boundaries between her occult and art practices in the changing contexts of modern Britain and global Surrealism. The project builds on the body of work which has challenged the Weberian secularizing nature of modernity – part of a wider process of deconstructing a singular notion of Modernism. In particular, it draws on the writings of Christopher Partridge and Nina Kokkinen on ‘occulture’, a concept which considers the significance of social and cultural conditions in the production of enchanted versions of reality.
Situating Colquhoun’s art making within multiple occultures, the project pays close attention to her negotiation of magical and secular contexts, in turn exploring the boundaries that these categories discursively enact. Born to white British parents in Shillong, north-east India, I consider the entanglements of empire, South Asian spirituality and occult practice which inflect Colquhoun’s work, as well as how her creative output was informed by interwar body cultures, wartime design discourses, and post-War reconstruction. Specifically, the project is focussed on three under-explored contexts for Colquhoun’s production – performance, design, and display – to offer an original contribution to the scholarship on Colquhoun, as well as to the expanding body of literature concerned with enchanted modernities.
About Emma Sharples
Emma Sharples is a researcher of modern British art and visual culture. She has presented her research at the Paul Mellon Centre, Tate Britain and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and in 2022 co-convened the British Art Network-funded seminar ‘Curating Magic’. Alongside her doctoral work, she is currently undertaking an AHRC-funded Exhibitions and Displays placement with Tate St Ives.
Instagram @sharplesemma