Madelyne Evans is a PhD candidate in the School of History of Art at the University of Edinburgh. Her thesis centres on the twentieth-century Welsh artist Gwen John (1876 - 1939) and the mystical and theological writings of twentieth-century philosopher, Simone Weil (1909 - 1943). Her research is focused on the complex political and spiritual dimensions of Weil’s thought and its ability to offer the means to understand John’s work in new ways. Combining modes of enquiry from the fields of art history and theology, her thesis will develop new models of feminist scholarship into the representation of spirituality and female embodiment, as well as re-exploring the spiritual dimensions of modernist practices. Her thesis is provisionally titled "Decreating the self as feminist creative act: Mysticism, Simone Weil and the work of Gwen John”.