Gianna French

Supervised by Dr Caroline Levitt

Advised by Dr Tom Young

Supported by the Tavolozza Foundation

The Haunted Surface: The Material Conditions of Spectrality in Victorian Drawing (Working Title)

My doctoral research investigates Victorian drawing as a medium uniquely attuned to ideas of the spectral (the ghostly or apparitional), asking how works from this period not only represent but materialise experiences of haunting, absence, and uncertainty. This project contends that the spectral imagination in Victorian Britain was not only represented through drawing but, in many ways, produced by the medium’s intrinsic conditions and the spectral potential of paper itself. By foregrounding these material processes, the project extends understanding of Victorian spiritual and occult practices as deeply entangled with the technologies and textures of everyday life, moving toward a material and art-historical hauntology.

Alongside my academic research, I work at the Ashmolean Museum (University of Oxford) and have held roles at the National Gallery, Sotheby’s, and Phillips, delivering complex projects across valuations, research, and digital engagement.