Dr Sheona Beaumont

Artist, writer and visual theologian

Dr Sheona Beaumont is an artist and writer working with photography, with extensive experience working and speaking at the intersection of the arts and theology.

Sheona’s creative practice explores biblical and theological ideas through photography, from the documenting of church communities to expressions of redemption in landscapes or portraiture. Since studying Fine Art and Visual Culture in Canterbury and Nottingham, she has had solo and group exhibitions across churches, cathedrals, and galleries nationally, including the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition. Her doctoral studies into the biblical spirituality of photography (University of Gloucestershire) were supported by Bible Society.

Sheona has held artist residencies in a variety of ecumenical settings: with Churches Together on Dartmoor (Devon), at Trinity College Bristol, and as Photographer in Residence at St Cyriac’s Church (Wiltshire). As Bishop Otter Scholar (Diocese of Chichester, 2017-2020), she combined her scholarly and creative practice through exhibitions, talks and publications with other writers and photographers, including Maciej Urbanek and Alys Tomlinson.

Sheona is a Visiting Research Fellow at King’s College London, and Artist in Residence for the Athelstan Pilgrim Way.

To find out more, visit Sheona’s website.

Virtual lectures

Sheona is available to deliver her lectures online, via Zoom. Please ask about this option when making your booking.

Publications

The Bible in Photography (Bloomsbury, 2023)

John Ruskin, the Pre-Raphaelites, and Religious Imagination (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023), co-edited volume with Madeleine Emerald Thiele

Transforming Christian Thought in the Visual Arts (Routledge, 2021), co-edited volume with Madeleine Emerald Thiele

‘Engaging with the Bible in Visual Culture: Hermeneutics between Word and Image, with Broomberg and Chanarin’s Holy Bible‘, Religion and the Arts (2019), pp.411-433.

‘Scaping Sin: Leviticus 15-18′, The Visual Commentary on Scripture, curating Tracey Emin, Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin, and James Tissot (2019)

Eye See Trinity: Trinity College Artist-in-Residence 2014-15 (Blind Sight Press, 2016)

Bristol Through the Lens: An Exhibition and an Essay (Tangent Books, 2011)

The Imagetext: Relations Between the Visual and Verbal in Painting and Photography (Lambert Academic Publishing, 2011)

Lecture titles

  • Bespoke lecture about any of Sheona’s photographic projects
  • Christianity’s Image Problem Today
  • Photography’s Theology of the Real: Seeing and Believing
  • The Big Picture: Biblical and Photographic Visions for our World
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