I was invited to contribute to the Medievalist Visions exhibition as an artist rather than a scholar. I was commissioned to produce a piece of work that responded to the themes of the exhibition and to think through how my interests might intersect with medieval culture, medieval studies, and medievalism studies. My own practice resides predominately in the field of illustration, a discipline that addresses image-making as a tool to articulate and disseminate ideas. Usually published as counterpoint to text, my images have been used in various printed forms, from newspapers and journals to book covers and posters. Much of my work now centers on the collaborative possibilities of the discipline, however, particularly through involvement with theater companies and in education, and is defined by my interest in the communicative possibilities of the image. I am fascinated by the importance of environment and display in the meaning-making process, and, so, was intrigued to work in a museological context alongside items from disparate collections. This essay plots the path of my research and thinking, and elucidates the connections and disconnections I found between my practice and my medievalist subject matter.

At the beginning of the Medievalist Visions project, I was struck by the close etymological ties between illustration and illumination. This made me think about the possibilities of shared practice across time and how I might draw a connection between the medieval illuminator and my practice as a modern illustrator. I was interested in how the term “medievalist vision” invited the possibility of seeing across and through as well as in time, but I was also aware of the cultural baggage the term “medieval” carries. As an age that is widely defined against the apparent artistic watershed of the Renaissance and the scientific rigor of the Enlightenment, the Middle Ages appeared to me as a site of great cultural potential in which mythology, science, and art interacted in productive and potentially surprising ways.

My knowledge of the Middle Ages was not well-developed; I brought my own preconceptions to the project, which were challenged or confirmed in discussions with the curators. One of my starting points was to think about the use of images in the Middle Ages.