Ballantyne-Reid, Will;
(2025)
Derek Jarman and Prospect Cottage: Painting, Ephemera and the Queer Archive.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
Situating Derek Jarman’s painting practice within theories of temporality, ephemerality and the queer archive, this thesis considers how this work can be interpreted within contemporary remembrance of Jarman as well as within the active (and ongoing) visual legacies of HIV-AIDS. This follows ArtFund’s high-profile 2020 campaign to #SaveProspectCottage (Jarman’s former home in Dungeness), renewed access to his paintings following a 2018 legal settlement, and a selection of recent exhibitions (2019–24) seeking to re-evaluate his work in the public imagination. Chapter I focuses on two painting series created in Jarman’s final years – ‘Queer’ and ‘Evil Queen’ – to reflect on how these representations of queer life and politics can be interpreted through the ephemeral networks of his artistic practice, personal life and activism. Chapter II examines Jarman’s ‘black paintings’ in light of the specific temporality conjured as a result of his HIV diagnosis and relocation to Prospect Cottage. This includes placing his relationship to ephemera in dialogue with the work of David Wojnarowicz, to interrogate the importance of affective encounters and activation in each artist’s legacy and memory. Chapter III challenges what might fall within the remit of Jarman’s expansive painting practice through analysis of several Super 8 films made for Pet Shop Boys. Placed in dialogue with selected black paintings, as well as the photography of Sunil Gupta, I highlight the enduring effect of the works’ ephemeral and affective underpinnings to reflect on issues of queer testimony, urbanity, pop culture, gentrification and national identity. Chapter IV analyses the ‘AIDS Paintings’ and ‘Dungeness Landscapes’ created by Jarman between 1991 and 1992, as they remain in situ in the sitting room at Prospect Cottage. By considering not just the works themselves but their composition in space, I reflect specifically on their lingering centrality within Prospect Cottage and its preservation/re-presentation of Jarman’s legacy.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Derek Jarman and Prospect Cottage: Painting, Ephemera and the Queer Archive |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2025. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of History of Art |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10206644 |
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