RESEARCH

I am committed to building region-specific knowledge regarding the behaviour of artists’ materials in tropical climates. To support this I have developed an interdisciplinary practice, synthesising my formal scientific training with my interest and growing knowledge of artist practices and art histories in the Asia Pacific region.

Part of this includes research on:
- analysis of the behaviour of modern artists’ paints in hot and humid environments,
- analysis of artists’ material archives,
- archival research into the historical availability of artists’ paints in Southeast Asia,

and involvement with the Asia Pacific Tropical Climate Conservation Art Research Network. Working within this collaborative, interdisciplinary framework, conservation science investigations can make important contributions to addressing the misalignment between Euro-American conservation and art history and the needs of collections in the Asia Pacific region.

In my previous role as Australian Conservation Science Fellow at Harvard Art Museums, I collaborated with conservators, curators, and other conservation scientists on a variety of different projects, including major technical art history analyses of Grazing Horses IV (The Red Horses) by Franz Marc, a selection of eighteenth and nineteenth century Persian lacquer objects from the Soudavar Collection, and a bust of William Pitt by Joseph Wilton.

Alongside these large-scale projects, I also perfomed material analyses to answer ad-hoc curatorial, conservation and treatment questions as they arose.

From this opportunity I learnt how to develop dynamic workflows with conservators, enabling data from my conservation science investigations to effectively value-add to their research and practice. Since then I have continued to develop my knowledge and skills so that I can best support conservation practice in Australia, and the broader Asia Pacific region.