Tobah is an art historian specializing in twentieth-century Britain. Her research addresses the intersection of art, industry, and environment, and includes inquiries into the visual history of extraction, the industrial provenance of artistic materials, images of pollution, and the resonance between artistic and industrial labor.
Tobah’s book project, “Abstract Ground: Fossil Industry and Modern British Art,” demonstrates that Britain’s extractive landscapes were crucial sites of modern artistic experimentation. The book examines mid-twentieth century artworks related to mines, oil refineries, and industrial waste. Resource extraction, and its attendant issues of pollution, materiality, and labor, provided a rich subject matter for artists who were interested in integrating the nation’s changing landscapes and workplaces into an increasingly abstract practice. The works that resulted from these encounters insisted on the pictorial relevance of class and environmental degradation, critical contemporary issues that continue to resist easy representation.
