Art and the emotions: Love

Vanessa Brassey

Vanessa Brassey is contributing editor and co-Director of the Centre for Philosophy and Art at Kings College London. The Centre is a major multi-disciplinary initiative whose aim is to bring together academics, artists, curators and gallerists to explore the connections between philosophy, theory and the visual arts. As well as an academic philosopher, she is a figurative painter whose work explores emotion and perception.

Lucy Dahlsen

Lucy Dahlsen is a curator based in London and Project Curator: Feminine power at the British Museum. She was previously Associate Curator of 20th century and contemporary portraiture at the National Portrait Gallery. Projects included curating solo exhibitions of the contemporary artists Elizabeth Peyton (2019-20), Njideka Akunyili Crosby (2018) and Samuel Fosso (2017).

Ayla Lepine

Ayla Lepine is the Associate Rector at St James’s Church Piccadilly. She was previously the Ahmanson Fellow in Religion and Art at the National Gallery in London. Her work has included teaching the King’s College London and National Gallery collaborative MA in Christianity and the Arts, and building diverse new networks within arts organisations and faith communities. She has held post-doctoral fellowships at the Courtauld and at Yale’s Institute of Sacred Music, and was Lecturer and Fellow at the University of Essex School of Philosophy and Art History.

Louise Nelstrop

Louise Nelstrop is a College Lecturer in Theology at St Benet’s Hall, Oxford and member of the Faculty of Theology and Religion. In addition to several articles, she co-authored Christian Mysticism: An Introduction to Contemporary Theoretical Perspectives (2009) with Kevin Magill and Bradley B. Onishi. In 2020 she produced ‘Complete Surrender’, a short film produced by filmmaker Pol Herrmann, exploring how five established artists took inspiration from two female medieval mystics - Hadewijch and Marguerite Porete - to investigate the question of ‘What is Love’.