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Doris Rohr

Liverpool Hope University, Fine and Applied Arts, Faculty Member

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Doris Rohr is Senior Lecturer in Drawing at Liverpool Hope University. Her research interests involve drawing and writing, environment and responsibility, sense of place and location. She has recently completed a PhD with Lancaster University with the title: "Drawing on Nature: the Legacy of John Ruskin’s Cosmos". She has published papers and contributed to conferences, and exhibited in UK, Ireland, Canada and Thailand. Rohr is editorial board member of Intellect journal "Drawing Research Theory and Practice", for which she is currently co-editing Issue 3.1"Drawing on Text" together with Professor Charlie Gere (Lancaster University). Her current projects are working on a joint presentation with Niamh Clarke (Ulster University) on text and image transcription for forthcoming conference "Art, Materiality and Representation" SOAS/British Museum 1-3 June 2018. She is co-developing research informed teaching examining ecological and post human perspectives in critical theory with colleagues at Liverpool Hope University.
Supervisors: Charlie Gere (PhD) and Gerry Davies (PhD)
Address: Liverpool Hope University
Creative Campus
Room 211
Shaw Street,
Liverpool
L6 1HP

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Christina Evangelista M

University of Warwick

Lower Saxony State Museum

Monash University

Josephine Ensign

University of Washington

The University Of East Anglia

Brendan Telford

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Papers by Doris Rohr

Material Presence: Drawing as Thought as TextSubtitle:'From Cradle to Parlour

A clock ticking. Dust in the air. Frame after frame depicting events long past, the shroud of for... more A clock ticking. Dust in the air. Frame after frame depicting events long past, the shroud of former lives, of youth and childhood, places visited, a school event, a wedding, a christening. Trapped in mahogany and ebony and glass. An oval picture is placed amongst many rectangular ones holding men like flies or beetles, or maybe butterflies, pinned to the wall as evidence that once they lived. Ornaments and photos; the most prominent depicting an object that looks like a table with four legs oddly placed. Perhaps a mirror. (...) The time is set somewhere in the 1950s or may be earlier, even. A room of someone who had lived in the early part of last century. I can hear and smell it, my grandparent's parlourdie gute Stube. No one ever sat in there-it was a graveyard of a room holding all that was deemed too precious, too vulnerable to be tainted by life. Apart from the wineglasses which on occasion were given leave, filled for rare social occasions next door and then washed haphazardly and put back into the ebony shrine of a petty bourgeois glazed cupboard, leaving behind a musty faintly alcoholic smell that encapsulated my grandmother.

Digital Wabi: meditations on digital error and analogue fixing

Academia letters, Mar 9, 2021

Collaborative project: From cradle to parlour

Drawing, Apr 1, 2020

This co-authored project report considers the polarity of the ephemeral (concept, memory, recolle... more This co-authored project report considers the polarity of the ephemeral (concept, memory, recollection) with the material aspect of creativity, as it manifests itself in the related yet complimentary practices of writing and drawing. The craft of drawing is complex and hybrid, more akin to writing processes as a means of embodying and making physical through gesture, than many other art forms and processes that rely on material presence. Writing and drawing materialize memory, ideas and projective thought and attempt to manifest their transience. The joint project research (Clarke|Rohr) was originally presented as a contribution to 'Drawings of, Drawings by and Drawings with …' chaired by Ray Lucas

In-Betweeness (Exhibition)

Good art, bad art – what is a ‘good’ drawing?

Visual Inquiry, Mar 1, 2013

Drawing, Apr 1, 2021

Storying ability: An introduction We had to draw a jam jar full of random objects for our exam. S... more Storying ability: An introduction We had to draw a jam jar full of random objects for our exam. Splinters of wood stuck in my back teeth as I bit through my pencil. I can still feel the sheer frustration of making that drawing. Mrs Nicely looked up from the front desk, smiling encouragement. I got a B for that drawing. A B is OK but it's not an A.

Locations of Desire: Emplaced Rituals of Subjective Commemoration and Mourning

Malta University Press eBooks, 2010

From left: keynote speaker Enrique Banús, University rector Juanito Camilleri, convenor Henry Fre... more From left: keynote speaker Enrique Banús, University rector Juanito Camilleri, convenor Henry Frendo and ISSEI president Ezra Talmor at the opening session of the tenth ISSEI world congress held at the University of Malta in July 2006 Can we speak of a 'European mind'? If there is one, how far is it identifiable or quantifiable? Which are the sinews in its thread? How, where and to what extent does it figure in time and space?

Drawing on text

Drawing, Apr 1, 2018

Editorial Drawing on textDrawing Research Theory and Practice 3.1

This special guest-edited journal investigates the relationship of drawing to writing, and the id... more This special guest-edited journal investigates the relationship of drawing to writing, and the idea that drawing forms one of the many possibilities and realizations of text, beyond an exclusively verbal definition (Derrida 1993; Farthing and McKenzie 2014; Rohr 2016). By implication, the word, or the verbal, has a long-standing association with intellect, whereas sense appreciations (aural, haptic, acoustic, olfactory) are associated with the 'base' body. Writing-in print in particular-hastened the departure from the physically experienced to primarily visually apprehended text (Ingold 2016; Ong 1982). The analysis of the separation of the kinaesthetic from the intellect forms part of a wider critique (Jay 1995; Pallasmaa 2005b; Paterson 2007; Pattison 2007). Mark Paterson's concept of haptic vision (2007) is of relevance to aid in an understanding of drawing as a mediator between traditional conceptions of text as the written (printed) word and a wider appreciation of (drawn) text as a polyphonic entity. When text is performed the word becomes pronounced, spoken, sung, enacted and thus embodied and emplaced. Handwritten text and manually rendered drawing are also intimately connected with the originator whose hand performed the word and committed it to paper or some other support, ground or surface. Even if not materialized, the performed word, enacted in drama or speech, retains this unique connection with the originator. (This does not preclude multiple authorship as in performing someone else's script.) The handwritten or brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk

Art and Science in the Age of the Anthropocene

Rohr's text is a contribution to the dialogue of art to science and proposes that art is effe... more Rohr's text is a contribution to the dialogue of art to science and proposes that art is effective in raising ecological awareness. Rohr argues that such intentions are reconcilable with John Ruskin’s proposal to interpret nature in a holistic way. The author reflects on how contemporary visual art contributes to topical issues of ecology, climate and loss of biodiversity, and discusses the relevance of visual methods such as painting and drawing, locating the author’s own drawing practice in critical and visual cultural contexts. Case studies are Josef Beuys (drawings in relation to environmental actions), Jane Rushton (drawing and painting plein air in landscape through deep immersion), Chris Drury's drawings and prints ('Everything Nothing'), and Eoin McHugh’s series of paintings titled 'Romantic Science'. McHugh’s paintings address Russian neurologist Alexander Luria’s concept that romantic science can accommodate the fictional or improbable. Rohr concludes that creative fiction, imagination and fantasy complement laboratory research. Artists not only need to challenge claims of objectivity in scientific research and enrich such through poetic imagination, they also have a moral duty to provide a critical and imaginative voice in a challenged ecology of post human relations with the natural world

Drawing on nature : the legacy of Ruskin’s moral cosmos

My gratitude is foremost to my supervisors, Professor Charlie Gere and Gerry Davies, who patientl... more My gratitude is foremost to my supervisors, Professor Charlie Gere and Gerry Davies, who patiently put up with my idiosyncrasies and never ceased to encourage me. Without the support of my partner David, this journey would not have been possible. I acknowledge the debt I owe to my family and my wish to express my appreciation for my parents, Dr Ingeborg Rohr and Paul Rohr. So this thesis is dedicated to the memory of my parents, who taught me so much: my mother an enthusiastic art historian who could never pass a church without further examination; my father a profound lover of nature, plants, birds and other creatures.

Drawing Research, Theory, Practice

Drawing: Research, Theory, Practice aims to promote and disseminate drawing research with a focus... more Drawing: Research, Theory, Practice aims to promote and disseminate drawing research with a focus on contemporary practice and its theoretical context. This journal seeks to reestablish the materiality of drawing as a medium at a time when virtual, on-line, electronic media dominates visuality and communication. The journal represents drawing as a significant discipline in its own right and in a diversity of forms: as an experimental practice, as research, as representation and/or documentation, as historical and/or theoretical exploration, as process or as performance. It explores the drawing discipline across fine art, science and engineering, media and communication, psychology, architecture, design, science and technology, textiles, fashion, social and cultural practices. As a rigorously peer-reviewed publication the journal presents contributions that deal both with traditional concepts, histories and dominant conventions and those that challenge current thinking and move towards experimental methods, concepts and practices. The topics include papers as well as visual contributions and projects that present drawing as a complex process, serving to: - become a source and basis for drawing research and exchange of knowledge in a variety of contexts- be a forum for engaging multidisciplinary debates on the ways in which drawing functions in contemporary culture- share scholarship in teaching drawing in art and design education and in contemporary art practice- facilitate different perspectives and debates on drawing as a practice as is changed and modernised by technology- present drawing as performance, as a tool, as a place of production, as a discursive exploration, a site of conception and as cognitive process

Drawing Dialogues

Image of Thought

Group exhibition with collaborative approach to generate drawings in response to individual excha... more Group exhibition with collaborative approach to generate drawings in response to individual exchanges. Rohr collaborated with Niamh Clark on the themes of objects, memory and loss ('Cradle'), and on the themes of nature, wildlife, ecology and loss with Tamzin Ashcroft ('Rookery') and Hannah Clegg ('Arkbird', 'Red Bird' and 'Red Roe'). The whole exhibition was mounted virtually as the gallery space was not accessible due to Covid-19. Archive of exhibition is: https://www.imageofthought.com

Drawingability' Editorial

The editorial provides an introduction to the contested area of skills in drawing including the c... more The editorial provides an introduction to the contested area of skills in drawing including the concept of de-skilling as a legacy of modern art processes. Contemporary perspectives, inclusiveness and (dis)ability studies inform the editorial. The editors introduce a wide range of peer-reviewed contemporary positions on what drawing skills may mean

Art and Science in the Age of the Anthropocene

Artisan House, Mar 15, 2019

Rohr's text is a contribution to the dialogue of art to science and proposes that art is effe... more Rohr's text is a contribution to the dialogue of art to science and proposes that art is effective in raising ecological awareness. Rohr argues that such intentions are reconcilable with John Ruskin’s proposal to interpret nature in a holistic way. The author reflects on how contemporary visual art contributes to topical issues of ecology, climate and loss of biodiversity, and discusses the relevance of visual methods such as painting and drawing, locating the author’s own drawing practice in critical and visual cultural contexts. Case studies are Josef Beuys (drawings in relation to environmental actions), Jane Rushton (drawing and painting plein air in landscape through deep immersion), Chris Drury's drawings and prints ('Everything Nothing'), and Eoin McHugh’s series of paintings titled 'Romantic Science'. McHugh’s paintings address Russian neurologist Alexander Luria’s concept that romantic science can accommodate the fictional or improbable. Rohr concludes that creative fiction, imagination and fantasy complement laboratory research. Artists not only need to challenge claims of objectivity in scientific research and enrich such through poetic imagination, they also have a moral duty to provide a critical and imaginative voice in a challenged ecology of post human relations with the natural world

Paper, Wall, Table and After" , Northumbria University, Gallery North: curators Sian Bowen and Chris DorsettPart 1 Paper, Table, Wall and After1st December 2014 - 23rd January 2015 Northumbria University Gallery NorthPart 2 Paper, Table, Wall and After and RE:fold30 November – 6 December 2015Inte...

"Paper, Wall, Table and After", Dec 1, 2014

All over the place: drawing place, drawing space

Exhibition pieces and publication Exhibited at UWE Faculty of Creative Arts (Nov 09) and The Stan... more

Performing 'Sympathy

Aesthetics of Landscape: Feathered Hills & Devolve; Evade

Material Presence: Drawing as Thought as TextSubtitle:'From Cradle to Parlour

A clock ticking. Dust in the air. Frame after frame depicting events long past, the shroud of for... more A clock ticking. Dust in the air. Frame after frame depicting events long past, the shroud of former lives, of youth and childhood, places visited, a school event, a wedding, a christening. Trapped in mahogany and ebony and glass. An oval picture is placed amongst many rectangular ones holding men like flies or beetles, or maybe butterflies, pinned to the wall as evidence that once they lived. Ornaments and photos; the most prominent depicting an object that looks like a table with four legs oddly placed. Perhaps a mirror. (...) The time is set somewhere in the 1950s or may be earlier, even. A room of someone who had lived in the early part of last century. I can hear and smell it, my grandparent's parlourdie gute Stube. No one ever sat in there-it was a graveyard of a room holding all that was deemed too precious, too vulnerable to be tainted by life. Apart from the wineglasses which on occasion were given leave, filled for rare social occasions next door and then washed haphazardly and put back into the ebony shrine of a petty bourgeois glazed cupboard, leaving behind a musty faintly alcoholic smell that encapsulated my grandmother.

Digital Wabi: meditations on digital error and analogue fixing

Academia letters, Mar 9, 2021

Collaborative project: From cradle to parlour

Drawing, Apr 1, 2020

This co-authored project report considers the polarity of the ephemeral (concept, memory, recolle... more This co-authored project report considers the polarity of the ephemeral (concept, memory, recollection) with the material aspect of creativity, as it manifests itself in the related yet complimentary practices of writing and drawing. The craft of drawing is complex and hybrid, more akin to writing processes as a means of embodying and making physical through gesture, than many other art forms and processes that rely on material presence. Writing and drawing materialize memory, ideas and projective thought and attempt to manifest their transience. The joint project research (Clarke|Rohr) was originally presented as a contribution to 'Drawings of, Drawings by and Drawings with …' chaired by Ray Lucas

In-Betweeness (Exhibition)

Good art, bad art – what is a ‘good’ drawing?

Visual Inquiry, Mar 1, 2013

Drawing, Apr 1, 2021

Storying ability: An introduction We had to draw a jam jar full of random objects for our exam. S... more Storying ability: An introduction We had to draw a jam jar full of random objects for our exam. Splinters of wood stuck in my back teeth as I bit through my pencil. I can still feel the sheer frustration of making that drawing. Mrs Nicely looked up from the front desk, smiling encouragement. I got a B for that drawing. A B is OK but it's not an A.

Locations of Desire: Emplaced Rituals of Subjective Commemoration and Mourning

Malta University Press eBooks, 2010

From left: keynote speaker Enrique Banús, University rector Juanito Camilleri, convenor Henry Fre... more From left: keynote speaker Enrique Banús, University rector Juanito Camilleri, convenor Henry Frendo and ISSEI president Ezra Talmor at the opening session of the tenth ISSEI world congress held at the University of Malta in July 2006 Can we speak of a 'European mind'? If there is one, how far is it identifiable or quantifiable? Which are the sinews in its thread? How, where and to what extent does it figure in time and space?

Drawing on text

Drawing, Apr 1, 2018

Editorial Drawing on textDrawing Research Theory and Practice 3.1

This special guest-edited journal investigates the relationship of drawing to writing, and the id... more This special guest-edited journal investigates the relationship of drawing to writing, and the idea that drawing forms one of the many possibilities and realizations of text, beyond an exclusively verbal definition (Derrida 1993; Farthing and McKenzie 2014; Rohr 2016). By implication, the word, or the verbal, has a long-standing association with intellect, whereas sense appreciations (aural, haptic, acoustic, olfactory) are associated with the 'base' body. Writing-in print in particular-hastened the departure from the physically experienced to primarily visually apprehended text (Ingold 2016; Ong 1982). The analysis of the separation of the kinaesthetic from the intellect forms part of a wider critique (Jay 1995; Pallasmaa 2005b; Paterson 2007; Pattison 2007). Mark Paterson's concept of haptic vision (2007) is of relevance to aid in an understanding of drawing as a mediator between traditional conceptions of text as the written (printed) word and a wider appreciation of (drawn) text as a polyphonic entity. When text is performed the word becomes pronounced, spoken, sung, enacted and thus embodied and emplaced. Handwritten text and manually rendered drawing are also intimately connected with the originator whose hand performed the word and committed it to paper or some other support, ground or surface. Even if not materialized, the performed word, enacted in drama or speech, retains this unique connection with the originator. (This does not preclude multiple authorship as in performing someone else's script.) The handwritten or brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk

Art and Science in the Age of the Anthropocene

Rohr's text is a contribution to the dialogue of art to science and proposes that art is effe... more Rohr's text is a contribution to the dialogue of art to science and proposes that art is effective in raising ecological awareness. Rohr argues that such intentions are reconcilable with John Ruskin’s proposal to interpret nature in a holistic way. The author reflects on how contemporary visual art contributes to topical issues of ecology, climate and loss of biodiversity, and discusses the relevance of visual methods such as painting and drawing, locating the author’s own drawing practice in critical and visual cultural contexts. Case studies are Josef Beuys (drawings in relation to environmental actions), Jane Rushton (drawing and painting plein air in landscape through deep immersion), Chris Drury's drawings and prints ('Everything Nothing'), and Eoin McHugh’s series of paintings titled 'Romantic Science'. McHugh’s paintings address Russian neurologist Alexander Luria’s concept that romantic science can accommodate the fictional or improbable. Rohr concludes that creative fiction, imagination and fantasy complement laboratory research. Artists not only need to challenge claims of objectivity in scientific research and enrich such through poetic imagination, they also have a moral duty to provide a critical and imaginative voice in a challenged ecology of post human relations with the natural world

Drawing on nature : the legacy of Ruskin’s moral cosmos

My gratitude is foremost to my supervisors, Professor Charlie Gere and Gerry Davies, who patientl... more My gratitude is foremost to my supervisors, Professor Charlie Gere and Gerry Davies, who patiently put up with my idiosyncrasies and never ceased to encourage me. Without the support of my partner David, this journey would not have been possible. I acknowledge the debt I owe to my family and my wish to express my appreciation for my parents, Dr Ingeborg Rohr and Paul Rohr. So this thesis is dedicated to the memory of my parents, who taught me so much: my mother an enthusiastic art historian who could never pass a church without further examination; my father a profound lover of nature, plants, birds and other creatures.

Drawing Research, Theory, Practice

Drawing: Research, Theory, Practice aims to promote and disseminate drawing research with a focus... more Drawing: Research, Theory, Practice aims to promote and disseminate drawing research with a focus on contemporary practice and its theoretical context. This journal seeks to reestablish the materiality of drawing as a medium at a time when virtual, on-line, electronic media dominates visuality and communication. The journal represents drawing as a significant discipline in its own right and in a diversity of forms: as an experimental practice, as research, as representation and/or documentation, as historical and/or theoretical exploration, as process or as performance. It explores the drawing discipline across fine art, science and engineering, media and communication, psychology, architecture, design, science and technology, textiles, fashion, social and cultural practices. As a rigorously peer-reviewed publication the journal presents contributions that deal both with traditional concepts, histories and dominant conventions and those that challenge current thinking and move towards experimental methods, concepts and practices. The topics include papers as well as visual contributions and projects that present drawing as a complex process, serving to: - become a source and basis for drawing research and exchange of knowledge in a variety of contexts- be a forum for engaging multidisciplinary debates on the ways in which drawing functions in contemporary culture- share scholarship in teaching drawing in art and design education and in contemporary art practice- facilitate different perspectives and debates on drawing as a practice as is changed and modernised by technology- present drawing as performance, as a tool, as a place of production, as a discursive exploration, a site of conception and as cognitive process

Drawing Dialogues

Image of Thought

Group exhibition with collaborative approach to generate drawings in response to individual excha... more Group exhibition with collaborative approach to generate drawings in response to individual exchanges. Rohr collaborated with Niamh Clark on the themes of objects, memory and loss ('Cradle'), and on the themes of nature, wildlife, ecology and loss with Tamzin Ashcroft ('Rookery') and Hannah Clegg ('Arkbird', 'Red Bird' and 'Red Roe'). The whole exhibition was mounted virtually as the gallery space was not accessible due to Covid-19. Archive of exhibition is: https://www.imageofthought.com

Drawingability' Editorial

The editorial provides an introduction to the contested area of skills in drawing including the c... more The editorial provides an introduction to the contested area of skills in drawing including the concept of de-skilling as a legacy of modern art processes. Contemporary perspectives, inclusiveness and (dis)ability studies inform the editorial. The editors introduce a wide range of peer-reviewed contemporary positions on what drawing skills may mean

Art and Science in the Age of the Anthropocene

Artisan House, Mar 15, 2019

Rohr's text is a contribution to the dialogue of art to science and proposes that art is effe... more Rohr's text is a contribution to the dialogue of art to science and proposes that art is effective in raising ecological awareness. Rohr argues that such intentions are reconcilable with John Ruskin’s proposal to interpret nature in a holistic way. The author reflects on how contemporary visual art contributes to topical issues of ecology, climate and loss of biodiversity, and discusses the relevance of visual methods such as painting and drawing, locating the author’s own drawing practice in critical and visual cultural contexts. Case studies are Josef Beuys (drawings in relation to environmental actions), Jane Rushton (drawing and painting plein air in landscape through deep immersion), Chris Drury's drawings and prints ('Everything Nothing'), and Eoin McHugh’s series of paintings titled 'Romantic Science'. McHugh’s paintings address Russian neurologist Alexander Luria’s concept that romantic science can accommodate the fictional or improbable. Rohr concludes that creative fiction, imagination and fantasy complement laboratory research. Artists not only need to challenge claims of objectivity in scientific research and enrich such through poetic imagination, they also have a moral duty to provide a critical and imaginative voice in a challenged ecology of post human relations with the natural world

Paper, Wall, Table and After" , Northumbria University, Gallery North: curators Sian Bowen and Chris DorsettPart 1 Paper, Table, Wall and After1st December 2014 - 23rd January 2015 Northumbria University Gallery NorthPart 2 Paper, Table, Wall and After and RE:fold30 November – 6 December 2015Inte...

"Paper, Wall, Table and After", Dec 1, 2014

All over the place: drawing place, drawing space

Exhibition pieces and publication Exhibited at UWE Faculty of Creative Arts (Nov 09) and The Stan... more

Performing 'Sympathy

Aesthetics of Landscape: Feathered Hills & Devolve; Evade

‘Art and Science in the Age of the Anthropocene’ (book chapter)

Robins, A (ed) From dream to dream: where art meets science , 2019

This paper builds on Rohr’s post-doctoral research methodologies of observational and emplaced dr... more This paper builds on Rohr’s post-doctoral research methodologies of observational and emplaced drawing of natural objects and environments. It discusses the role of the visual arts, Ruskin's legacy to art and science, and the value of an integrated art/science approach. The purpose of Rohr’s text is to contribute to the dialogue with scientific research partners, their methods and objectives. It positions the contemporary art/science dialogue through a series of case studies. Eoin McHugh’s series of artworks, referred to under the title 'Romantic Science', address Alexander Luria’s concept of the oxymoron of romantic science accommodating the fictional or improbable. This allows fiction, imagination and fantasy to enrich and question laboratory or empirically grounded methods in science research. Rohr argues that such a proposal is reconcilable with Ruskin’s proposal to interpret nature in a holistic and imaginative approach. Other case studies for ecological action are located in Josef Beuys’s environmental actions. Beuys' practice featured drawing strongly. Rohr argues that drawing pays an important role in innovative artistic contributions to contemporary approaches to the art science/dialogue.