Thesis (MA--Art and Design) -- Auckland University of Technology, 2002. / Also held in print (x, 33 leaves, col. ill., 30 cm.) in Wellesley Theses Collection. (T 701.15 HEI)

Our everyday lives can be complex and fast paced. Places, people, sounds and memories all make lasting impressions. "Identity" is the title and basis for my creative project. My identity has been created though a series of memories or impressions. Songs, stories, the media, location and other people have had a great impact on my personal development.I have taken all these influences into account while creating my thesis works. I questioned myself in different ways. "Whom do I relate to? What songs describe me? Through these question, I found icons and images that formed my personal identity. The difference between what is and what appears to be.Is identity created or do we create identity? The question may seem philosophical, but I do not consider myself a philosopher. My series "Identity", documents my investigation of self, a deconstruction of society that has and has not formed my artistic identity. / Department of Art

Thesis (M.A.)--Carleton University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 132-142). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2009. / Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 136-144).

M. Tech. / My research examines how artworks referring to cattle convey symbolic meaning about cultural identity in South Africa, thus contributing to the research niche area of the University of Johannesburg (Visually Embodying Identity in a Post Colonial Environment). I track shifts in traditional ethnic and cultural boundaries which shaped South Africa, by comparing selected examples of historic and contemporary art and artefacts which embody cultural values. This provides a reading of the dynamic process of changing identities in South Africa with emphasis on the process of creolisation being particularly identifiable in the work of chosen artists Peter Mthombeni and Joachim Schönfeldt. In my practical research I attempt to reflect different South African identities, from colonialist, essentialised identities to the newer identities of a post-apartheid, democratic, 21st century multicultural society. My practical research which focuses on dynamic shifts in identity results in an installation of a ‘herd’ of ceramic cattle heads in an outdoor public area, namely the entrance to the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture at the University of Johannesburg.

The primary objective of this creative project was the exploration of cultural and self identity and the painting techniques used for their creation. The paintings are an attempt to portray through the use of the human figure and symbolic elements to communicate my personal struggle relating to events in my past, present, and future. In these three large paintings I have explored an approach reminiscent to German Expressionism style along with more contemporary motifs which are derived from my research and past experiences in painting at Ball State University. It was very important for me to spend time researching artist involved in the German expressionist movement, because they have been an integral part of reshaping the way I approach art. This body of work required a variety of traditional oil painting techniques including: canvas construction, under painting, stumbling, and glazing. / Department of Art

The focus of this project is a creative investigation of the significance and function of the alter-ego in contemporary visual art, specifically in relation to sculpture, installation and video. / Artists, including myself, frequently develop characters or different personalities in and through their work in order to present an alternate, idealised or transformed self or as a tactic to investigate a different approach to their practice. These alternative constructed selves can function in diverse ways, often as a strategy for transgression, dispensing with accountability and/or for maintaining the freedoms and possibilities of a mutable identity. / Central to my research has been the development of a body of artefacts and texts that are made through, about or in response to a variety of my own alter-egos. Initially I inhabited three discrete alter-egos that were variations of myself, as an artist, in order to be able to observe and compare how they might operate and form an intra-subjective discourse. These version 'excursions', being Winifred, Edith and Sadie, can be more accurately described as semi-alter-egos because although the personalities are not entirely mine they are not different from mine they are not different from but simply 'mutilations' of my personality. They were initially outlined as Edith the struggling, self-effacing but creative loser, Winifred the straight faced, repressed, serious investigator brimming with curiosity and Sadie the successful, relaxed and happy self-enhancer for whom art and life flow. / The alter-egos evolved through changes of my appearance, behaviour and biographical data. Evidence of this approach is manifest through the amassing of fragments of images, artworks, video and photo documentation. The conception of Winifred, Edith and Sadie as artists allowed me to ground my activities in the studio around objects and materials through a project that was essentially a process. A critique of the art world is implied through the various strategies and responses of the alter-egos. The process eventually involved killing off these particular personae to more fully engage with questions of 'becoming' through a less contrived more unknowing approach to emerging alter-egos. / The artefacts were not conceived as an 'exhibition' but are residue of the research process and constitute the greater part of my thesis. The written exegesis elucidates the line of research undertaken within the studio practice with reference to personal perspectives and contemporary conceptions of the self. The exegesis also documents an exploration into the device and use of the alter-ego in recent visual arts practice and analyses how these constructed selves might permit, reveal, conceal or operate as projections of inner states or fulfilments of desire. My studio experiments and construction of artefacts have been informed by critical analysis of these functions and the ways in which they related or diverged from my own motivation and utilisation of the alter-ego. I briefly consider the area which includes abnormal psychological conditions such as the multiple personality and the splitting of the subject. / This project deals with complex philosophical issues without foregrounding a theoretical approach. The emphasis is on the generative potential through studio-based research in the area of visual arts. / Thesis (MVisualArts)--University of South Australia, 2007.

What is belonging? What does belonging mean as lived experience? What happens when displacement disrupts belonging as solid given? / I investigate these questions from my unstable position as displaced cultural 'other', as artist, as woman and as city dweller. Personal memories, dreams and the experience of reality form threads of reference that are akin to Walter Benjamin's notion of memoirs, rather than being an autobiographical chronology. / I question how a sense of belonging may be instilled, maintained, lost, achieved, resisted; how a sense of otherness may develop, persist, (re)surface. Do migrants merely amplify a universal dilemma? My position as migrant is a complex interweaving of presence and absence, developed gradually over time as a result of a wide range of factors, including the abiding effect of early childhood experiences. I focus on geography and language as central to the experience of cultural displacement and move between ambivalent positions and the seemingly solid territories of authoritative theories. / The structure of the thesis reflects these complexities. It is a psychogeographical mapping of several journeys in one, like a Deleuzian rhizome route system, or Debordian dérive, or what Jean-Luc Nancy calls a mêlée. As methodology I draw on these theories to bring together complexities, by interweaving experience, practice and theory. / The thesis comprises art works and a written exegesis. Drawings, photos, maps and other artwork intersperse with writing; artefacts include text, maps, knitting and series of images that document walking projects. I link walking to uttering, to language and the telling of stories. I explore the complex dilemmas of translation, of language as loss, contained as interiority and language as appropriated, claimed from without. Both exegesis and studio work form part of a process that is expressive, while situated within a critical context. / I argue the validity of ambivalent belonging, formed and maintained in transient connections between fragmented aspects of experience, while keeping open the potentiality of ongoing change. This research into the meaning of belonging is full of intuitive beginnings and remains open ended. / Thesis (PhDVisualArts)--University of South Australia, 2005.

Thesis (M.V.A.)--University of Sydney, 2007. / Title from title screen (viewed 26 March 2008). Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Visual Arts to the Sydney College of the Arts. Includes a list of illustrations: leaves 5-6. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print form.

Thesis (M. Arch.)--Carleton University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 78-81). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.