Isobel started writing reviews for the Irish art magazine Circa in 2004 and has since contributed to a wide range of magazines, journals,
Isobel started writing reviews for the Irish contemporary art magazine Circa in 2004 and has since contributed to a wide range of magazines, journals, catalogues and publications in Europe and the US. Bringing new work to readers’ attention is an aspect of art criticism she considers important, focusing on emerging and under-historicised artists, most frequently specialising in artists’ film and performance.
Over the past 15 years she has developed the depth and format of her writing in reviews, features and columns for magazines including Frieze, Art Monthly, Art Review and Art Agenda, as well as in essays on artists’ works for museum catalogues, journals and critical anthologies. Isobel’s articles have often developed into curatorial projects in different galleries, for example Ericka Beckman’s first career retrospective screening at the Tate Modern in September 2013.
Isobel completed her PhD at Goldsmiths in 2015, which formed the basis of her first monograph, Performing Image. The book considers how artists have combined performance and moving image since at least the late 1960s in order to highlight and challenge problems, stereotypes, and exclusions in mainstream media. This convergence of performance and moving image both anticipates and contextualises society’s habits of performing images, as part of an increasing dependence on technology and smartphones, and the widespread activity of ‘prosumerism’. It was published in 2019 by the MIT Press.
Isobel is currently working on other book projects, while teaching critical studies at Goldsmiths, University of London.