I am a freelance sound art and visual art practitioner; historian of art, visual culture, and sound culture; and educator. From 1995 to 2022, I was Professor of Art at the School of Art, Aberystwyth University, Wales. My research field is the sonic and visual culture of religion, principally.  Since October 2022, I have been Emeritus Professor at the School of Art.

In my art practice, I explore non-iconic attitudes to the visualization and sonic articulation of religion through an engagement with visual, textual, and audible sources, theological and cultural ideas, and systemic and audiovisualogical processes. My sound art work is available through The Aural Bible series of releases, principally: Penallta Colliery: Sound Pictures (Screen & Sound Archive, 2022); Seven Prayers for Stephen Chilton: Requiem (Screen & Sound Archive, 2021); Noisome Spirits (Screen & Sound Archive, 2021); The Biblical Record (National Screen & Sound Archive of Wales, 2019); The Bible in Translation (National Screen & Sound Archive of Wales, 2016); and R B V E Ǝ T N Ƨ O A E (National Library of Wales: Screen & Sound Archive, 2015). My visual work, exhibited in the UK and USA, is discussed in The Pictorial Bible series of publications: The Bible in Translation (School of Art Press, 2015); Seal Up the Prophecy and Vision (School of Art Press, 2007-8); and Settings of the Psalms (National Library of Wales, 2000-1).

In my historical studies, I engage the visual and sound culture of popular piety, the Judaeo-Christian scriptures, supernaturalism, and working-class traditions. I have published the following books: The Bible as Visual Culture (Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2013); Photography & Spirit (Routledge, 2007/10); The Appearance of Evil: Apparitions of Spirits in Wales (University of Wales Press, 2003); Image of the Invisible: The Visualization of Religion in The Welsh Nonconformist Tradition (University of Wales Press, 1999); and The Art of Piety: The Visual Culture of Welsh Nonconformity (University of Wales Press, 1995).

I have also contributed numerous chapters and articles to books and journals including: ‘Image and Inscription: Sonification as an Interpretive Methodology in Transmedial Biblical Study’ (Die Bibel in der Kunst, 2022); ‘”The Hearing Ear and the Seeing Eye”: Transformative Listening to the Biblical Image’ (Routledge, 2021); ‘The Retrieval of Revival: Recollecting and Revising the Evan Roberts Wax Cylinder’ (The Courtauld Institute of Art, 2015); ‘The Ghost in the Machine’ in The Ashgate Research Companion to Paranormal Culture (Ashgate, 2013); ‘Framing the Word’ in Bible, Art, Gallery (Sheffield Academic Press, 2012); ‘Visual Culture’ in The Handbook of Research Methods in Religious Studies (Routledge, 2011); and ‘The Bible and Art in Wales’ in Imaging the Bible in Wales (University of Wales Press, 2010).

My convened conferences include: ‘The Noises of Art: Audiovisual Practice in History, Theory and Culture’ (Aberystwyth University/The Courtauld Institute of Art, London, 2013); and the Bible and Visual Culture series (University of Wales, Aberystwyth/University of Wales, Lampeter, 2005-7). I have delivered keynote addresses and other scholarly papers at conferences held in the UK, Europe, and USA (1986 to date).

From 2011 to 2018, I was Co-ordinator of eye(aɪ)–ear(ɪə(r)): a research group investigating the interrelationship of image, sound, and word. From 1999 to 2013, I was Director of the Centre for Studies in the Visual Culture of Religion. I have been a member of the Advisory boards for the journal of Biblical Reception (2010–18); the International Advisory Board of the Material Religion journal, USA/UK (2005­–9); and the Institute of Studies in Sacred Architecture, USA (2003).

From 1992 to 2022, I taught on the: BA (Hons) Fine Art; BA (Hons) Art History; MA Fine Art; MA Art History; MPhil Art History; PhD Fine Art; and PhD Art History schemes at the School of Art, Aberystwyth University. My teaching curriculum and doctoral research supervision covered: the visual and sound culture of religion; sound art; image and text; religion and photography; religious architecture; contemporary art; art in Wales; and the practice of sound, painting, and drawing.

During the period from 1992 to 2022, I served as a member of the Faculty of Arts Executive Committee, the Faculty of Arts and Social Science Research Committee, and the University’s Court and Senate committees. At the School of Art, I have been: Head of School (1995–2005); Research Coordinator; Postgraduate Coordinator; Chair of the University Collections Committee; and a Personal Tutor.