My first proper publication was a very small cookery book (small but condescending, shall we say?) called Black Coffee & Cigarettes, which I wrote, published and distributed while studying at Glasgow University in the early 1990s. While I still require little excuse to cook large, sprawling meals, at the time I felt the market was oversaturated with cookery writers (how wrong I turned out to be…). Soon after graduating I organised an arts festival in Glasgow and started writing about the rapidly changing independent arts scene - which at the time included design, stand-up comedy and sound - for The Times and The Glasgow Herald.

During the 1990s I had columns in both The Times and The Independent on Saturday (the latter rather short lived - I was going through a particularly obscure phase) and wrote for a number of British newspapers, including The Guardian, The Independent and The Evening Standard. I also contributed occasionally to magazines including Dazed & Confused, The Modern Review and Prospect.

In 2001 I moved to the US with my small son, and from there, in 2002 to Istanbul, where I developed another small son. In Istanbul I wrote for Time Out Istanbul,  Cornucopia and .bkz and occasionally contributed travel features to international publications including Condé Nast Traveller. In 2005 I moved to Belgium where I started writing for the legendary (and alas now defunct) expat publication The Bulletin, becoming a section editor and writing about art and Antwerp’s avant-garde fashion scene. From Belgium I also contributed features to The International Herald Tribune, The Financial Times and DAMn. After a chance meeting with the editor on a trip to Beijing, I also started writing a regular column for ArtReview magazine. I left The Bulletin and became first editor at large and then editor in chief of The Word, a young Brussels-based magazine focussed on photography and culture.

While working at The Word I was approached by MoMu, the fashion museum of Antwerp, to curate a major exhibition on Delvaux, the world's oldest luxury goods company, and source of much pride in Belgium. Many months working in the company's archive and in the leather workshops eventually led to the exhibition and book Delvaux: 180 Years of Belgium Luxury. 

In 2010 I moved back to London and started editing for Phaidon, working on publications including Defining Contemporary Art, Art & Queer Culture and Pattern: 100 Fashion Designers, 10 Curators for which I also wrote the introduction. In 2011 I started writing on art, fashion and even food (finally!) for TIME magazine, and also contributed essays to publications connected to the creative scene in Antwerp, including books on Walter Van Beirendonck and the pioneering makeup artist/ photography duo Inge Grognard and Ronald Stoops. 

In 2012 I started work with Violette Editions on Interwoven: Kvadrat Textile and Design which I edited and to which I contributed essays on Tord Boontje and Sevil Peach (the book was published by Prestel). I also contributed the introduction to Emerald, produced by Violette Editions for Thames & Hudson, texts for the book accompanying Jeremy Deller's touring exhibition All That Is Solid Melts Into Air, and a catalogue essay for the Happy Birthday Dear Academie exhibition at MoMU. I oversaw updates and wrote many of the entries for Phaidon's revised edition of The Fashion Book. 

After a few years working on the editorial team of the venerable British art magazine ArtReview, in September 2015 I left to go fully freelance. My first regular gig came as art critic for The Independent on Sunday. Following the Sindy's unfortunate demise I moved over to the i and worked as chief art critic for the paper from 2016 until May 2024. In 2022 editor Ed Behrens invited me to write a monthly column for Apollo magazine, which is where I get to ask difficult questions and play around with ideas. I’m a regular writer for The Guardian, The Times Literary Supplement, Art Quarterly and Frieze. For a number of years I was a contributing editor to the wonderful botanical culture journal The Plant.

I write catalogue essays for shows ranging from the Venice Biennale to small exhibitions in new independent galleries. Recent books include Art London (ACC Art Books, 2019), Frida Kahlo (Laurence King, 2020), Caroline Walker: Janet (Anomie, 2020), Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones (John Murray, 2022), How Not to Exclude Artist Mothers (and other parents) (Lund Humphries, 2022) and Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood (Thames & Hudson).

After a long break from curating, in 2020 I had a great time putting together a two-part (online) exhibition on Alexis Hunter - Money, Art, Sex - for Richard Saltoun Gallery. More recently I have curated the 2024/25 Hayward Gallery touring exhibitions Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood, which toured the Arnolfini, Bristol; MAC, Birmingham; Millennium Gallery, Sheffield and DCA Dundee where is closes in July 2025.

Between 2019 and 2025 I have conducting research on art and motherhood. Together with a group of artists, I drew up the manifesto How Not To Exclude Artist Parents – a set up rules that has been shared and translated around the world and which is now available in 16 languages. I have drawn on my research and the experience of writing the manifesto for my book How Not To Exclude Artist Mothers (and other parents) which takes a more solutions-based approach to the subject, looking at artists and organisations around the world that show the artworld how we might do things differently. I continue to work in the field with other projects, including the Art Working Parents Alliance - co-founded with Jo Harrison.

I do a LOT of talking. Often with artists, and often about art.

I am currently working on a book about women’s desire, among other things.