Deirdre is an artist and Senior Lecturer in the School of Art and Design at Adelaide University. Her practice‑based research focuses on the materiality of image‑making, media archaeology, and optical image systems and instruments as mediators of perception and experience. She works across art, science and technology, with sustained collaborations in physics, electronic engineering and advanced fabrication, including the South Australian node of the Australian National Fabrication Facility (ANFF‑SA).
Her creative practice develops hybrid image systems that combine historical optical knowledge – from Renaissance natural magic and nineteenth‑century optical mechanics – with contemporary digital fabrication and traditional making. With a background in glass‑making and the projected moving image, she works with materials such as glass, mirrors and lenses to create image systems that engage viewers both physically and emotionally.
Deirdre has held competitive research residencies and fellowships, including an ANAT Synapse Residency with the Australian National University Research School of Physics and a Research Fellowship at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, investigating nineteenth‑century astronomical devices and their influence on early cinema technologies. Deirdre's work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the ANU Drill Hall Gallery, Deakin University Gallery, Bornholm Museum (Denmark), Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Art (Taiwan) and William Traver Gallery (USA), and is held in public collections including the Art Gallery of Western Australia and the National Museum of Ireland. Her research welcomes cross-disciplinary collaborators and graduate researchers interested in practice‑led research, optical media, material‑led inquiry, media archaeology and art–science collaboration.