Most of my teaching is in aspects of Modern and Contemporary art, and I present courses in both international art, and in Irish art of the period. Other undergraduate teaching includes a course in Northern Art of the 15th-17th centuries, where I focus mainly on the historical and sociological context, the art market and on the representation of landscape. In addition to those courses for which I am responsible, I contribute to various other courses and modules including in Irish Studies.

I am particularly interested in two, overlapping fields of research. The first of these, Modern and Contemporary art has led to various projects (exhibitions, symposia, and publications) on artists from Ireland and elsewhere, as diverse as Paul Klee, Georgia O'Keeffe, Jack Yeats, Louis le Brocquy, Patrick Scott and others. I also explore agendas in the representation of landscape, space and place. While the main focus is currently on Irish examples from the early twentieth century to the present, my interests are somewhat broader in practice, involving landscape imagery of any locations and periods, and engaging with a range of disciplinary approaches to interpretation, from philosophy to cultural geography. I am involved also in the Royal Irish Academy Irish art project, as contributor and chair of the advisory board for Volume V, to be published by RIA and Yale University Press.