Thomas Cardwell

Biography

Dr Tom Cardwell is an artist and researcher based in London, UK. His research focuses on DIY subcultures, clothing and image traditions.

Tom’s book Heavy Metal Armour (Intellect, 2022) and PhD thesis (University of the Arts London, 2017) employed painting practice and ethnography to examine the customised ‘battle jackets’ made by metal fans. He contributed a chapter on clothing in metal scenes to the Cambridge Companion to Metal Music (Cambridge University Press, 2023), and to the forthcoming volume What’s Left of Metal (Revol Press, 2026).

From 2022-23 Tom was Kone Arts Fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies where he researched the urban ‘message boards’ found on the streets of Helsinki. This research subsequently featured in an article for the Journal for Urban Cultural Studies (2024) and the artworks from the project were exhibited at Kiasma, the Finnish National Gallery of Art, Helsinki (2025).

Tom Cardwell is Senior Lecturer in Painting at Camberwell, University of the Arts London.