Duncan Bullen

Duncan has worked at the University since 1999, and during this time, he has held many roles within his subject area (Fine Art) and across the School of Art (SoA), previously Art, Design & Media (ADM). These included Module Leader and Course Leader (Fine Art Printmaking and Academic Programme Leader for Fine Art (FA), including an 18-month period 2014- 2015 when he was also academic programme leadership responsibility for Photography, Moving Image and Sound. Duncan is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and is External Examiner for BA(Hons) Drawing and Printmaking at the University of West of England.

Duncan's day-to-day work is as Deputy Head of School for Research and Enterprise with responsibility for providing strategic, professional and academic leadership, with a particular focus on the development and implementation of the School of Art's research and enterprise plan. Duncan chairs the Schools Research and Enterprise Committee, which supports the productive and vibrant environment for research and enterprise and for raising the Schools profile internally and externally. Duncan sits on several committees within the School and across the wider leadership of the University.

Duncan initially trained in Fine Art at Leeds Polytechnic where he gained a first-class degree in 1988. He then completed an MA in Printmaking at the Royal College of Art in 1991 after which he was the recipient of a Prix d' Rome: Printmaking Scholarship, spending 1991-92 at the British School at Rome. Duncan then undertook a series of residencies at the Eremo di Santa Caterina, a former hermitage on the Italian Island of Elba, which shaped an interest in contemplative image making and mindfulness practice. Increasing interest in Asian aesthetics and philosophy have led co-curation of recent projects such as Methodology of the Edition; an International printmaking project from three universities and three 

Duncan's supervisory interests cover a range of Fine Art and practice-based research with the use of drawing being central to his concerns. He has a particular interest in non-representational and meditative approaches to drawing and theory to research aspects of phenomenology, lived experience and arts health/wellbeing related subjects.

I currently teach at the postgraduate level on MA Fine Art as a mentor. Previous this  I taught across a number of modules on BA (Hon) Fine Art Printmaking and MA Fine Art. I am currently supervising three PhD students. The mentoring module comprises of one-to-one tutorials to discuss relevant critical and professional texts leading to suitable forms of documentation and promotion and to assist students in accessing appropriate areas of University resources.   Throughout my career, the majority of my teaching has been within my subject area - Fine Art.  It is a studio and workshop approach, based on study tasks that involve surface, deep and strategic approaches to learning. My UG teaching focuses on an artefact in various stages of production and will include an evaluative, descriptive, critical and interpretive discussion with students. The multiple strategies students might adopt to realise a specific artwork is discussed through approaches. These discussions focus on conceptual and formal analysis and contextual reference. One of the intrinsic features of students of fine arts is the plurality of approach to the subject. The range of interests from painting, printing and sculpture to performance, sound art and socially engaged practice is held to together by an interest in the processes of making and shaping materials. Experiential Learning theory, with its emphasis on experience, reflective observation, and critical thinking is a model that captures the dynamics of arts-based studio learning and teaching. It is an approach that enables learning to be located and actualised through doing. As a teacher, I am interested in experiential and reflective learning as a form of our meaningful relationship to the broader world. How as makers, we not only shape the object made but how this has the potential to shape the maker, which in turn shapes our world of work and the environment. I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.