This study investigates the link between anguish and artistic creativity. It became possible to follow this link through the concept of anguish and its related aspects that were explored in the works of Jacques Lacan. The concept of art that was adopted in this study is based on the theories of Georges Dickie and Arthur Danto, which explain the role of the idea of institutional art through the artworld. The current study pursued its enquiries through the analysis of the texts of interviews with selected South African artists namely Albert Munyai, Azwimpheleli Gerson Magoro and Norman Catherine and through selected artworks by these three artists. A mix of discourse analysis and iconography was employed to analyse the data. Anguish is an affect that is not readily apparent or detectable but is more likely to be recognized as something displaced, inverted or adrift. Therefore, anguish in the data was approached from diverse angles. Discourse analysis helped to find patterns in the language that linked to signs of anguish as described through a psychoanalytical framework. For the analysis of the artworks, a combination of iconography and the categories of the borromean knot was adopted. These methodologies permitted the translation of aspects of artworks into texts. Anguish as an affect related with the absence of an absolute meaning for existence may also be present in the motivation to create something from nothingness. There is an indication that through creating art one may be trying to symbolize the real that affects the subject.

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment in compliance with the requirements for the Masters Degree in Technology: Fine Art, Durban Institute of Technology, 2012. / I believe that the election in 1994 of the first democratic government in South Africa has presented a challenge to all South Africans in different ways. I believe that one of the principal challenges that the 1994 elections presented to my conservative Calvinistic Afrikaner community was to address its personal, family, community, national and international identity/ies. Arising out of this perspective and perception, I have explored my and my family memory/ies to answer questions about my identity. My study is a journey of awareness: a self-study exploring my identity through critical self-reflection and the development of my art practice. My self-study is multi- disciplinary: it employs interchangeable methodologies allowing for various forms of knowledge generation. My journey of awareness is a “living theory” in which I have developed my “living standards of judgement” and addressed my “living contradictions” (Whitehead 1985; 1989; 2008a; b; c; d). My study illustrates the symbiotic research and creative process of developing an understanding of my identity as a white Afrikaans woman through practicing my art. My art practice assisted in the action/reflection process as well acting as a tool for social action and transformation. / M

History of Art Masters of Art by Course Work and Research Report / No abstract

This study explored the content, tone and amount of graffiti produced in South African bathrooms in KwaZulu-Natal. Raw graffiti was collected during 2008 from „institutions of higher education?. One of the primary aims of this study was to investigate if gender identities continue to operate in private, anonymous contexts. Politeness theory is utilized as a theoretical framework to generate hypotheses about the direction of influence gender may exert on graffiti if it continues to operate in private contexts. Inscriptions were written down in books. Thematic analysis was then applied, which led to the generation of content categories in content analysis on which chi-squared statistical procedures were applied. The categories were analysed in terms of amount, dominant content and tone, and were stratified in relation to gender. Ecosystems theory was used in an attempt to more holistically understand our sample within the context in which it was created. This study has found that gender had a significant influence on the amount, content, and tone of the graffiti produced. It was found that males dominantly produced tags and political graffiti content, and were more likely than females to produce neutral and negatively toned graffiti. Females produced significantly more graffiti than males and dominantly produced interpersonal content. We hypothesised that our findings were due to gender roles being internalised and continuing to operate in private contexts, especially in contexts where gender is salient, like a bathroom. We argued that the cognitive representation of an inscriber?s gendered audience influences them to behave in gendertypical ways, and in this behaviour their gender is performed, even in the private, anonymous context of the bathroom. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sci.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2011.

The white male artist whose self-interrogation attaches to his whiteness, difference and former centrality, inevitably exposes himself to the critical scrutiny of current discourse on race and whiteness studies. In this dissertation I examine the concept and emergence of whiteness as a dominant construct in select socio-historical contexts, more particularly in the colonial sphere. While colonial whiteness has often failed to acknowledge or foreground the faceted nature of its composition, this became particularly marked in a South African context with polarisation in the political, cultural and linguistic spheres. However in encounters with the colonised, unifying pretensions of whiteness prevailed, reinforcing difference along racial lines. I examine the work of white South African male artist Brett Murray, in which the interrogation of whiteness and associated marginalization and invisibility is again foregrounded, but predominantly in a postcolonial context. As Murray cautiously navigates his satirical gaze at the culturally and conceptually flawed hybridity of South African (male) whiteness, he inadvertently exposes a nostalgic gaze at erstwhile racial centrality. I further consider whether as a postcolonial other Murray has in fact been able to transcend racially based self-interrogation by addressing more polemic issues associated with power, corruption and inhumanity that transcend race. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2009.

This thesis reviews two local collections of ceramics by Nesta Nala between 1985 and 1996. The main text is presented in four chapters. Chapter One outlines the development of Nala's career and discusses the collections of her work outlined in this study. Chapter Two provides a brief overview of Zulu domestic-ware traditions, and outlines the basis of Nala's technology and decorative methods. Chapter Three reviews texts that discuss Nala and her work and then critically examines the application of the term "traditional". Chapter Four interprets Nala's decorative themes of examples in the Durban Art Gallery and University of Natal collections. An attempt is made to contextualize genres of Nala's work represented in these collections on the basis of their intended market destinations. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1997.

In this dissertation I analyse and contextualise stereotypical notions associated with the concept of home, and what that constitutes, in the work of South African artists Antoinette Murdoch, Bronwen Findlay, Doreen Southwood and Penelope Siopis, each of whom displays a different perspective of the concept in their artwork. I further consider how these selected South African artists engage with the dichotomies surrounding issues of home and the gendered position assigned to women in this area. I address the strategies the selected artists use in bringing the realm of the private sphere into the public arena and how they transgress the boundaries of private and public spaces. In addition I consider how concepts of home are reflected in my own work and how they are informed by a feminist perspective. The choice of white female artists as the subject of this research is a conscious one, in that I wish to avoid an investigation into cross-cultural gendered subjectivities which will inevitably become entangled with questions of race, politics and culture. As western feminist thought often tends to ignore the specific experiences of ethnic groups located outside western cultural experience, my focus on artists whose context is in part shared by my own is intended to provide an insider perspective. In the context of this research, 'home' is defined as a traditionally acknowledged place where woman is identified in relation to domesticity and the family unit. The term 'home' is therefore partly applicable to a type of domestic environment regardless of its geographic and cultural associations. Home has been defined as a 'group of persons sharing a home or living space (whereas) most households consist of one person living alone, a nuclear family, an extended family or a group of unrelated people' (Scott and Marshall 2005:276). The home is regarded as a place of security where the most intimate of relationships takes place, but it is also an arena of complex human relationships associated with domestic, family, personal and cultural identity. The home is further regarded as a private space and as being somewhat inaccessible, as opposed to the public domain which is open to scrutiny. The home houses a corridor of emotion, however, and may often become a place of entrophy. A subtle shifting and subverting of the conventions which society places upon women and men to conform to particular behavioural constructs will be deconstructed to reveal the concept of home as a site where the boundaries between reality and illusion become blurred. My own artistic practice is concerned with the deconstruction of the home as an idealised space and the façade that often conceals a dystopian reality that lurks beneath such idealisation. I share assumed cultural and class values with the selected artists and will critique the subject from a personal perspective, in part as a self-narrative. Within the context of this research, the term 'middle class' is defined as 'the class of society between the upper and working classes, including business and professional people' (The Oxford English Dictionary 1994:509). / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2011.

When he opened the 24th annual exhibition of students' work on the 1st July, 1927, Professor F.W. Armstrong gave the following account of the beginnings of the Grahamstown School of Art: ... The appointment of a master was the responsibility of Sir Langham Dale, the Superintendent General of Education in the Cape Colony. His choice for the first art master of the Grahamstown School of Art was Mr.W. H. Simpson. Simpson had studied at the South Kensington Museum then at the Royal Academy. During the 1870's he had exhibited in the Royal Academy, at other exhibitions in London, and in the provinces. Intro. p. 1.

Over three decades of research has shown that memories have significant effect on the behaviour, attitudes, beliefs, and identities of individuals and collectives, revealing also how experiences of trauma and acts of narrativisation have pertinence to the ways in which memories are stored and reconstructed. In this thesis a link is developed between memory, trauma, narrativisation processes and the interpretation of works by Jane Alexander, a contemporary artist whose work is informed by observations about South African life. Alexander’s sculptures are revealed to be not only important vessels of collective memories and experiences, but also evocations of individuals’ countermemories and traumas that remain unarticulated and invisible. Through an exploration of the workings of memory and its relation to her art, it is revealed how the past continues to exert its influence on many of South Africa’s present sociopolitical concerns and interpersonal dynamics. Indeed constantly changing memories have a significant effect on future generations’ perceptions of, and connectedness to, the past. While theories about memory have been deployed in Art History as well as the Humanities in general, Alexander’s work has not previously been considered in light of the influence of these ideas. This thesis thus contributes a new dimension to literature on the artist.

This dissertation explores the impact of Bushman images, and the writings of Lucy Lloyd and Wilhelm Bleek (working with the Breakwater Bushmen) on three art works of Pippa Skotnes. They are The Return III (1988), For //Kunn (1993) and Heaven’s Things (1999). It is argued that Bushman imagery, being the result of shamanic trance activities is characterised by imagery, which mammals universally share. The use of the same imagery by the Surrealists in the twentieth century arises not from an intimate interaction with the spirit realm/dream world but from the European longing for an altered reality. Skotnes appropriates Bushman imagery in her prints, narrating the tragic fate of the Bushman. She laments the loss of the transcendental relationship between Man and the Universe. The exploitation, adoption and marketing of Bushman imagery by the tourist industry marks the distinction between her respectful treatment and the materialism of South Africans. / Visual Arts / M.A. (Visual Arts)