Dr Rachel Wells FHEA

Rachel is a Senior Ruskin Tutor in the History and Theory of Fine Art. Before returning to the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford in 2020, Rachel was Lecturer in the History and Theory of Art at Newcastle University (2011-2018), Tutor in Fine Art (History and Theory) at the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford (2009-2011), and Henry Moore Foundation Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Courtauld Institute of Art (2008-9). She received her PhD (2008) and MA (2004) from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London University. Prior to her study in the History of Art, Rachel read English at Cambridge University (BA 2003).

Rachel has been an invited speaker at the Universities of Cambridge, Durham, Edinburgh, Milan (keynote), Newcastle, Oxford, Sunderland, the Courtauld Institute of Art, London and the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, Munich. She has given invited talks and tours at galleries and museums including the Ashmolean, Baltic, the Hayward Gallery, the Laing Art Gallery, Modern Art Oxford, the Photographers’ Gallery and Tate Britain.

Rachel is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and has acted as an External Examiner at the Universities of Oxford and Manchester.

Rachel teaches History and Theory courses across all stages of the undergraduate degree programme at the Ruskin School of Art through lectures, seminars and tutorials. She is the Fine Art tutor at Worcester College.

Rachel’s research focuses on modern and contemporary art. Recent publications have considered the exploration of scale and distance in photography, film and sculpture in relation to ethical questions of recognition, interpretation and memorialisation.

Rachel’s writing has been published by Tate, Art History and the Oxford Art Journal, among others. Her book Scale in Contemporary Sculpture: Enlargement, Miniaturisation and the Life-size (Ashgate, 2013, Routledge paperback 2016) offers a theorised account of scale in contemporary sculpture and its photographic documentation within the interlinked contexts of accelerated global capitalism and the legacies of postmodern theory.