Master of Visual Arts / The Elephant and the Journey is about what and how people see in the land and how this is expressed through art forms. The dissertation consists of three main parts. The first in the introduction explains the use of the narrative figuration form in Thai temple mural painting in my practice, and how I used it to apply to the contemporary context in Australia. The second concerns three main groups of work including Australian landscape paintings in the nineteenth century, aboriginal art works and Thai mural painting, which apply to the topic of landscape. The second part in Chapters I and II, examine how significant the perspective view in the landscape was for artists during the colonial period in Australia. At the same time I consult the practice in Aboriginal art which also concerns land, and how people communicate through the subject and how both practices apply to Thai art, with which I am dealing. Chapter III looks at works of individual artists in contemporary Australia including Tim Johnson, Judy Watson, Kathleen Petyarre Emily Kngwerreye, and then finishes with my studio work during 2004-2005. The third part, the conclusion refers to the notions of cultural geography as suggested by Mike Crang, Edward Relph and Christopher Tilley, which analyse how people relate to a location through their own experience. I describe how I used a Thai narrative verse written by my father to communicate my work to the Australian society in which I now live.

Master of Visual Arts / The Elephant and the Journey is about what and how people see in the land and how this is expressed through art forms. The dissertation consists of three main parts. The first in the introduction explains the use of the narrative figuration form in Thai temple mural painting in my practice, and how I used it to apply to the contemporary context in Australia. The second concerns three main groups of work including Australian landscape paintings in the nineteenth century, aboriginal art works and Thai mural painting, which apply to the topic of landscape. The second part in Chapters I and II, examine how significant the perspective view in the landscape was for artists during the colonial period in Australia. At the same time I consult the practice in Aboriginal art which also concerns land, and how people communicate through the subject and how both practices apply to Thai art, with which I am dealing. Chapter III looks at works of individual artists in contemporary Australia including Tim Johnson, Judy Watson, Kathleen Petyarre Emily Kngwerreye, and then finishes with my studio work during 2004-2005. The third part, the conclusion refers to the notions of cultural geography as suggested by Mike Crang, Edward Relph and Christopher Tilley, which analyse how people relate to a location through their own experience. I describe how I used a Thai narrative verse written by my father to communicate my work to the Australian society in which I now live.