Postgraduate Programme: Student Awarded PhD

We are pleased to announced that Protoklis Nicola was awarded a PhD in February, 2015. His thesis exploring icon painting is entitled Icon Painting from the Heart (An Examination of Devotional Love through a Contemporary Art Practice). The thesis takes the production of the icon, not as the process of creating a material object, but as the unveiling of a state of being.

Describing his work, Protoklis writes, "When painting the icon I am engaging in a process of recollection and devotion. Painting becomes the vehicle for opening the heart and soul to God and to all the deified beings in the icons who are openly inviting us to experience the supreme stillness and joy of this remembrance. The thesis is thus concerned with how the icon resides within the heart and with the dynamics of how its physical existence 'flows' from the heart."

You can learn more about the work of our other research students by clicking here.