Dr Jonathan Clarkson

e: jclarkson@cardiffmet.ac.uk
t: 029 2041 6664

Specialist Subject Areas

Art History and Theory

Qualifications

1985-88 University of Kent at Canterbury. BA (Hons) 1st Class, Art History & Film Studies

1992-96 University of Essex, Dept. of Art History and Theory. PhD, The Theory of Fantasy and the Visual Imagination in the English School of Psychoanalysis

Biography

Jonathan Clarkson is a leading international scholar on the painter John Constable. His critically acclaimed monograph on the artist was published by Phaidon in 2010. His book was named by The Sunday Times and The Telegraph as one of the best art history books of the year. He trained as an art historian under Stephen Bann, and his doctoral thesis was supervised by Michael Podro and examined by Richard Wollheim and Margaret Iversen.

As well as Constable and landscape painting in Britain, Jonathan Clarkson’s research interests include contemporary art, psychoanalysis and theories of representation.

He has recently completed an essay on Adrian Stokes’ book Stones of Rimini that is due to be published in 2012 (Newall & Pooke, eds., 50 Key Texts in Art History, Routledge).

He gave a paper at Easter 2011 at the Association of Art Historians Conference at the University of Warwick on an ancient Roman well-head in the NMGW, Cardiff. The paper looked at the way the object’s shape impacts on the narrative that it depicts, and how the viewer is drawn into the story.

He is currently writing a book on subjectivity and contemporary art, which has grown out his teaching in this area over a number of years.

Principal Publications and/or Exhibitions

Click here to view Dr Clarkson’s papers and publications on Cardiff Metropolitan University’s DSpace repository.

Books
Constable, Phaidon, 2010
Sense in Place, Site-ations International 2005/06, (co-editor with Sean O’Reilly) inc. essays by Edward Soja and W.J. T. Mitchell, Cardiff, 2007
Constable and Wivenhoe Park: Reality and Vision, (co-editor with Neil Cox), University of Essex, 2000.

Articles and Essays
‘Adrian Stokes: Stones of Rimini’ in Newall & Pooke (eds.), Fifty Key Texts in Art History, Routledge, London, 2012
‘Constable Country’ in Heritage 159, January 2011
‘Paul Beauchamp, Timescapes’, Re:Imaging Wales ed. Hugh Adams, Seren, 2006
‘‘A Walk with the Little Lady’: Exploring Wivenhoe Park’ in Constable and Wivenhoe Park: Reality and Vision, University of Essex, 2000.

Catalogues
‘The Philosophical Forest’ in Taechol Kim: Beyond Visibility, Seoul, South Korea, 2010
‘City of Cats’ in Angela Lizon’s Colossal Cats, CSAD, Cardiff, 2010
‘Square Deal’ in Laddering Malevich’s Tights, Toulouse, 2008
‘The Life of a Nail’ in Visarjan, Resurgence, Rust Cube Centre, New Delhi, 2006
‘False Work’ in Falsework, Station, Bristol, 2005
‘This City’ in Philip Nicol, Paintings Newport Art Gallery, 2005
‘Paul Beauchamp, Timescapes’ in Timescapes, Bay Art, Cardiff, 2004
‘Familiar Territory’ in Through the Looking Glass: artists investigating family life, University of Essex, 2000.
‘Estuary’ in Estuary, University of Essex, 1999.
‘Anatomy of Melancholy’ in Alchemy and the work of Arturo Duclos, University of Essex, 1998.

Reviews
‘Taking the Measure of Things’, Planet 170, April/May 2005, pp. 119-121
‘Artificial Paradise’, Planet 171, June/July 2005, pp. 121-123
‘Mind the Gap’, Planet 179, October/ November 2006, pp. 119-121

Modules Taught

Undergraduate:
ADF 107 Towards a Free Revolutionary Art
ADF 211/215 Thinking Through Art
ADF 212 Dissertation Proposal
ADF 309 Dissertation

Postgraduate:
ADX 404/405 Critical Positions in Art & Design
Doctoral:
Currently Supervising 3 PhDs: one on contemporary landscape art and curation in Ireland; one on dialogical art and one on the location of the mind in relation to visual art.