Bibliography: pages 37-38. / The work undertaken for my Masters degree seeks to address some of the prejudice experienced by disabled people. Society's concept of a normal body prescribes unattainable standards for people with disabilities, thereby isolating and marginalising them. Instead of accommodating these physical differences, society encourages disabled people to withdraw from society or to try to conform to able-bodied ideals and to appear 'as normal as possible'. The very physical presence of disabled people challenges these assumptions of normality. Therefore, attempts are made to cosmetically hide the offending part or exclude the person from society (e.g. a hollow shirt sleeve or 'special' school). When individuals fail to conform to the prescribed standards of normality, they face the stigma of being viewed as pitifully inferior and dependent upon their able-bodied counterparts. In this way disabled people do not 'suffer' so much from their condition, as from the oppression of able-bodied biases. Through different eyes, society could be seen as handicapped as a result of its inability to adapt to, or deal with difference. In reality, however, disabilities are experienced by many people and can range from those which are physically visible and easily identified to those less obvious, but often more debilitating such as abrasive, socially aggressive personalities or learning disabilities. It is possible, therefore, to extend the understanding of the term disability to any physical or emotional impairment that limits a person's functioning within a so-called normal society. Although many people and organisations have searched for less pejorative or negative terms to describe an impairment such as 'Very Special', 'people with abilities' or 'physically challenged', these attempts have failed to reverse prejudice. Instead, these descriptions have only re-described the emphasis on 'otherness' and 'difference'. In addition, these replaced descriptions are again associated with the same stigmas that they were intentionally designed to avoid. In the following discussion I have consciously used the word disabled or disability to refer to individuals with various disabilities which I have nevertheless defined as socially constructed. In doing so I am suggesting no pejorative associations. Through this project I wanted to explore notions of disability within various debates associated with disability and society. I have done this in the context of my own experience of disability, and my own attempts to come to terms with disability. In this sense this project represents a personal journey.

Dissertation submitted in partial compliance with the requirements for the Master's Degree in Technology: Fine Art, Durban Institute of Technology, 2004. / This research aims to critically investigate the changing colonial and post-colonial attitudes towards the South African landscape, as physical space and its representation, through a post-colonial and Post-Modern critique. Chapter One explores the shifting colonial attitudes toward the landscape from the middle of the eighteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century, to provide an historical overview and context for contemporary practice. Section One defines colonialism for the purposes of this study and provides a brief history of colonialism in South Africa. Section Two provides a concise history of European visual representation from the middle of the eighteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century in order to contextualize the development of South African landscape painting. Section Three analyzes and evaluates changing colonial attitudes and their representation through a discussion of the work of Francois Le Vaillant (1753-1842), Thomas Baines (1820-1875) and J.H. Pierneef (1886-1957). Chapter Two explores attitudes towards the South African landscape between 1948 and 1994 in order to provide a link between colonial representation and post-colonial contemporary practice. / M

Thesis (PhD (Visual Arts))--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / In this thesis I deconstruct key concepts, terminologies, and rhetorical conventions employed in white South African writing on modern black art. I trace the genealogy of the dominant discursive practices of the apartheid era to the cultural discourses of the colonial era, which in turn had their origins in the Enlightenment. This genealogical tracing aims to demonstrate that South African art writing of the 20th century partook of a tradition of Western writing that was primarily intent upon producing the Western subject as a rational Enlightenment agent via the debased objectification of the colonial Other. In the process of the deconstruction, I identify the most significant discursive shifts that occurred from the 1930’s, when the first publications emerged, to the 1990’s, when South Africa’s new political dispensation opened up a different cultural landscape.

This is a monograph on the South African artist Diek Grobler. The aim is to contextualise the artist‟s oeuvre up to 2009 and to explore the visual metaphors in his art. Grobler has a fascination for stories. He blends tales of traditional Western mythology, African mythology, Christian religion, folklore and magical realism into narrative artworks. Through visual metaphors the artist comments on the everyday human dramas that surround him – be they political, social, psychological or cultural. Furthermore, he adds an element of surprise to his sketches of human drama, by infusing them with irony and humour. My research reflects the diverse nature of Grobler‟s oeuvre as it investigates works from various artistic genres such as painting, sculpture, illustration, performance art, avant-garde theatre and animation. It also examines a blend of different artistic media such as ceramics, oil paint, gouache, pastels, scraperboard, earthenware, 2D computer animation, puppetry, and stop-motion animation. / Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology / M.A. (Art History)

This is a monograph on the South African artist Diek Grobler. The aim is to contextualise the artist‟s oeuvre up to 2009 and to explore the visual metaphors in his art. Grobler has a fascination for stories. He blends tales of traditional Western mythology, African mythology, Christian religion, folklore and magical realism into narrative artworks. Through visual metaphors the artist comments on the everyday human dramas that surround him – be they political, social, psychological or cultural. Furthermore, he adds an element of surprise to his sketches of human drama, by infusing them with irony and humour. My research reflects the diverse nature of Grobler‟s oeuvre as it investigates works from various artistic genres such as painting, sculpture, illustration, performance art, avant-garde theatre and animation. It also examines a blend of different artistic media such as ceramics, oil paint, gouache, pastels, scraperboard, earthenware, 2D computer animation, puppetry, and stop-motion animation. / Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology / M.A. (Art History)