This practice-based research sets out to explore modes of address and spectatorship in relation to contemporary painting. Taking as its point of departure Michael Fried’s Absorption and Theatricality: Painting and Beholder in the Age of Diderot (1980), I question whether painting can be performative without becoming theatrical and what this means for spectatorship specifically. Throughout, I aim to establish the contemporary conditions required for painting to firstly be sincere (non-theatrical) and secondly to ‘activate’ the spectator (as well as itself) and thus become ‘performative’. In this way something gets done (J.L.Austin) as opposed to just being described and a reality is changed. I have undertaken detailed research into ‘theatricality’ and ‘performativity’ as concepts, the latter possessing the potential to give power to the artwork and viewer simultaneously, thus enabling both the artwork and spectator to be at once ‘activated’. This sits in opposition to traditionally passive object/subject models of spectatorship. I utilise ideas of ‘action’ throughout the process of my research. The action-reflection spiral constitutes a large part of my method and I also intend for it to be transparent in the outcome of the research i.e the artworks and their consequent agency. Chapter one focuses on theatricality with particular emphasis on Michael Fried’s book Absorption and Theatricality: Painting and Beholder in the Age of Diderot (1980), which is used to scaffold the structure of my argument. I break down his argument into three key terms: ‘absorption’, ‘theatricality’ and ‘tableau’ and discuss them in relation to the paintings, collages and assemblages in my 2011 show titled My Brother is a Hairy Man. Chapter Two involves a discussion of my second 2012 exhibition titled, The King of Hearts Has No Moustache, in relation to performativity (Dorothea von Hantlemann) and networks (David Joselit) within gallery contexts. I unpack this discussion of performativity through the individual discussion of the two exhibition spaces (the front room and back room). In Chapter Three I focus predominantly on spectatorship’s potential for performativity with particular focus on Alfred Gell’s anthropological theory of art. I consider this theory of social agency in relation to my 2013 exhibition Escape The Esplanade which addressed the dichotomy between the spectacle and the spectator, reversing the traditional roles in the process. Through a renegotiation and expansion of the term tableau I conclude a framework was put in place from which the spectator could be ‘absorbed’ and activated in larger exhibition environments. In addition, networked displays of painting, engendered collective sociability and many-to-one (as opposed to one-to-one) performatives, as was demonstrated by the installation of the back room of the second exhibition. This more ‘plural’ performativity ultimately resulted in more ‘activated’ spectators. Finally through an inversion of traditional modes of address in Escape the Esplanade the spectator simultaneously became the spectacle and the artworks spectators. In this way painting, and spectatorship became performative whilst evading theatricality.

‘Figure-ground’ is about the production of meaning based on the perception of contrasts or binary oppositions and segregations. Viewers of my paintings, and of the kind of paintings that interest me, have the impression that the ‘figure’ subsides or slips or fades into ‘ground’, or that the ‘ground’ is more powerful or dominant than the‘figure’, or that the ‘figure’ is insecurely attached, suggesting it is incapable, unwilling, too acquiescent or complicit to fully differentiate itself from the ‘ground’. I address flux, mutation, indistinctness and complementarity within the visual field of painting. I develop and extend the heuristic context for the interpretation of my studio practice and for work of a similar kind, and then feedback this new context into my practice in order to generate new works, also in the process shedding a new light on my interpretative models. Beyond this, I also make a more general argument for the re alignment of the relationship between art theory and practice - one that can better incorporate a sense of in between-ness, indistinctness or liminality. My approach is comparative: I look at East Asian art and ideas and, in particular, deploy the writings of the French Sinologist and philosopher François Jullien, in whose work there is the attempt to expand Western epistemology, ontology, semantics and aesthetics via a discussion of Chinese thought and aesthetics. Jullien proposes a paradigm that draws the ‘in-out’ respiratory rhythm or pulse within the perceptual field towards the centre of a theory of representation, a theory that seeks to account for consciousness from the ‘inside’ rather than the ‘outside’. The consequence of this relocation of agency is an interpretative framework that is firmly grounded in a nondualistic and holistic approach, foregrounding affect and empathetic relationships between artist and work, viewer and work, and self and the world. Traditional East Asian thought begins with similar premises to poststructuralism in the West: the ‘self’ is an illusion and the possibility of knowledge of reality independent of thought is dismissed as untenable because there is no objective reality accessible to us. Everything depends on the bias of the mind, rather than on anything we can identify as an innate attribute of reality itself, thus there is no escape from our lived experience, and we are profoundly limited by the interpretive knowledge of our mind; we are trapped within the ‘prison house of language’. But within the different recursive orientations that characterize ‘East’ and ‘West’ the interpretation and consequences of these insights are understood in quite different ways. I explore why this should be the case and what some of the consequences are, both theoretically through the written text and performatively through my studio work.

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This thesis sets out to examine two new issues; the use of the colour modelling system in Florence in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth-centuries and the way it impacts the relationship between six artists who lived and worked for the most part in Florence during that period. Among these artists exist strong ties of studios, common patrons and working locations. Florence has traditionally been identified with disegno and Venice with colorito, although these associations are gradually being overturned; by looking at the clear and consistent use by Florentine artists of colour for expressive and volumetric means, it is hoped to gain a greater and more sophisticated understanding of these relationships. The first chapter looks at the work of Domenico Ghirlandaio and his bottega, one of the largest and for our purposes most influential studios in Florence; for comparison and also because of his role in the issue, Filippino Lippi enters as well. A chapter on Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio's most famous pupil, follows; the cleaned frescoes of the Sistine chapel provide one of the main foci of discussion for colour in the thesis, due to their great fame and dramatic colour use. These are discussed together with the Doni Tondo and the London Entombment. The middle two chapters focus on Andrea del Sarto, Fra Baitolommeo and the San Marco compagnia, the artists to stay in Florence after the departure of Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael and who taught many of the next generation of artists. The last two chapters deal with Jacopo Pontormo and Rosso Florentino; as heirs and successors to these earlier artists, Rosso and Pontormo continue in the use of this same colour modelling tradition, but employing it with dramatically different results.

My thesis examines four major religious commissions from distinct points within Goya's artistic development. Each piece serves as a touchstone for a discussion of its particular moment, provoking analyses of iconography, history, aesthetics, or patronage. These paintings offer profound evidence of the artist's ability to tactfully navigate the demands of involved patrons, religious decorum, complex aesthetic allegiances, and his own desire for invention. My thesis opposes teleological readings of Goya's work that have historically privileged both his secular and later work. Instead, I take an episodic approach and argue the merit of each work on its own for revealing a unique and invaluable element of Goya's artistic identity. By demonstrating the similarity in conception that exists between Goya's religious and non-religious works, and by asserting the equivalent value of these two traditional groupings, I aim to deconstruct the religious genre itself as it pertains to Goya.

In three large-scale paintings, I depict the development and presence of Silicon Valley, a high capital powerhouse in Northern California associated with technical innovation. I combine epic nature and expansive capitalist geography as expressions of the sublime, a philosophical art term that refers to greatness beyond all possible calculation, measurement, or imitation. The sublime is seen in Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich’s and contemporary photographer Andreas Gursky’s works. In my paintings, Friedrich’s traditional sublime meets with Gursky’s contemporary capitalist concerns. My painting technique involves layering several squares to suggest pixelation in the city. Artists Gerhard Richter and Thomas Ruff inspire my abstraction and pixelation as a sublime digital storm. I create my own version of compressed digital images (JPEGs) like Ruff, and I work traditionally similar to Richter with a procedure in arbitrarily layering squares of color. Pixelating Silicon Valley attempts to show the draw to a mysterious digital capital since I am also inspired by geographer David Harvey’s analysis on economic magnets in spaces. Thus, the painting technique for Silicon Valley seeks to map the sublime philosophy and capital attraction onto a technological landscape.

The image of George Romney presented in his early biographies is of a successful society portraitist by day but the creator of `sublime and infernal reveries' at night by candlelight. Today these passionate designs from literature are characterized as proto- Romantic but, paradoxically, they were created within the context of a disciplined renaissance-humanist tradition. Romney's amateur and professional literary friends supplied him with a profusion of potential subjects and produced eulogistic verses about the artist and his works, stressing his sensitivity, seclusion, humble origins and natural genius. Taking their cue from the formulaic writings about artists from antiquity and the renaissance, the poets applied to Romney legends concerning artistic predispositions towards melancholy and emotional depth and provided a format in which his works of sentimental or tragic themes could be appreciated. The desired end result of their concerted and contrived enterprise was a fame for the artist which also reflected glory on the writers. Post-Romantic-historical methodologies have taken for granted that deference on the part of the artist t wards a visors and patrons carried negative associations and have underestimated the collaborative nature of creativity in the eighteenth century. George Romney's career demonstrates that even within changing social and creative orders, and a long-side more modem impulses, longstanding traditions involving a close association between artists and advisors, striving for mutual benefits, survived well into the early-Romantic period. Examination of the extensive money primary source material, including correspondence with literary friends and his jottings on subjects and artistic theories in notebooks is undertaken within the context o f an analysis of Romney's works and the means of their promulgation. This thesis offers a new interpretation of Romney's career and argues that artistic production in late eighteenth- century Britain cannot be fully understood unless the ambitions and methods of the literary figures advising artists are considered.

Tha an t-ath-mheasadh a' sònrachadh cuideam sòisealta 'na Gàidhealtachd mar shealladh': ma leughar an snàithlean gu faiceallach, cuiridh e ri tuigse air an dàimh eadar na daoine mòra agus na Gàidheil tro bhreisleach na naoidheamh linn deug. Tha an gnàthnòs air a chùlaibh a' dèanamh cron air dearbh-aithne nan Gàidheal, ge-tà. Ann am peantadh, chaidh cumhachd a' ghnàth-nòis sin a bhriseadh leis 'a' Ghàidhealtachd mar dhualchas'. 'S ann tron dòigh-fhradhairc seo a bu chòir traidiseanan lèirsinneach na Gàidhealtachd a thaisbeanadh san latha an-diugh. Tron dàrna leth den naoidheamh linn deug, tharraing cruth-tìre na Gàidhealtachd ceudan de luchd-ealain. Gu tric, dhealbhaich iad an roinn mar àite sìtheil bòidheach anns an d'fhuaras co-luadair 'fa leth' stèidhichte traidiseanta. Dh'ùisnich peantairean grunn de dh'fhoirmlean ann a bhith a' dèanamh seo. Ro mheadhan na ficheadamh linn, chaidh na foirmlean seo aithneachadh leis na breithnichean-ealain mar 'an gnàth-nòs Gàidhealach'. Chaidh a chumail a-mach leotha gun robh an gnàth-nòs ath-aithriseach ro-mhaothinntinneach, agus nach do riochdaich e atharrachaidhean na naoidheamh linn deug air a' Ghàidhealtachd. Tha an tràchdas seo ag ùisneachadh teòraidhean nan saidheansan sòisealta gus athmheasadh a dhèanamh air ìomhaighean na trèimhse. Tha e a' tagradh gun robh dà shnàithlean aig na dealbhan-tìre den Ghàidhealtachd. B' e 'a' Ghàidhealtachd mar shealladh' a bh' anns an dàrna fear agus thaisbean e mì-thuigse air co-luadair na roinne. Chaidh a leasachadh tro phròiseas-cuairteachaidh agus bha àite aige ann a bhith a' daingneachadh gnàth-nòs air an do chuir uachdarain na Gàidhealtachd tùs. B' e 'a' Ghàidhealtachd mar dhualchas' a bh' anns an t-snàithlean eile. Dh'èirich i a-mach à traidisean peantaidh na h-Alba agus rannsaich i an dàimh eadar na Gàidheil, an àrainneachd nàdarrach agus tìm. B' e fìor aomadh-ealain a bh' innte: tha àite cudromach aice ann an eachdraidh-ealain na Gàidhealtachd, agus lorgar i cuideachd ann an eachdraidh-ealain Eòrpaich nas fharsainge.

This research project asks how a consideration of Greek herm sculpture can be put to use in exploring prosthetic conditions of painting. This question is addressed through a series of essays and a body of studio-based art work, undertaken at the RCA from 2010 to 2015. The written submission contains a series of interconnected essays, through which prosthetic conditions of painting are explored via Greek herm sculpture, in order to reassess the work of contemporary and historical painter’s practices. The first chapter looks to a history of herm sculpture, focusing on the roles it has performed around the age of Alcibiades, of Athens 4 B.C. This assessment is aided by Michel Foucault’s notion of askesis and Pierre Hadot’s work on spiritual exercises. They enable a shift, from understanding the herm as a physical object to the historical roles it has performed in Greek culture — as a desecrated object, boundary-marker, object of ritual and, via its connection to hermes, a means of interpretation, bodily passage and transition. I address a collection of essays ‘Six Memos for the Next Millennium’, by Italo Calvino, and his connection to The Workshop for Potential Literature (Oulipo), in order to understand the use of literary restraints as exercises which offer a preliminary guide to how the herm can be used in this project. Through Foucault, Hadot and Calvino, the herm transitions from object to an askesis — undertaking tasks that perform in essays and paintings. The subsequent essays focus on the work of Lynda Benglis, Orlan, Caravaggio, François Boucher and Imi Knoebel, addressed through contemporary thinkers that undertake considerations of the prosthetic. The intersection of material culture studies, feminist theory, disabilities studies and poststructuralism, offer a view to the prosthetic that creates a platform for a reconsideration of these artists’ work. The herm becomes a silent guide in this project, understanding the prosthetic as imbedded in ideas of the relational — sensitive to the way in which body and paint, silicone and skin can adjoin, supplant, intersect, enhance and compensate, between subjects and objects. By inserting the prosthetic into narratives that question the relationships between bodies, objects and surfaces in these artist’s work — and in asking what they can produce — this project explores and articulates prosthetic conditions of painting.

Derived from the Latin corrodere, meaning to ‘gnaw to pieces’, corrosion as a transformative physical process is nature at its most sublime, engendering fear and power, producing the obscure and reducing form to the darkness ‘beneath all beauty as promise of its ultimate annihilation’ (Beckley, 2001: p. 72). The thesis considers corrosion as subtraction, erasure and negation in relation to the painting process. Through experimentation with the ruination of both content and painting’s plastic, material properties the thesis reflects upon how the disruption or destruction of image and surface might relate to the un- representable. Within the history of twentieth century art negation has been cited as the defining spirit of the Modernism (TJ Clark: 1986). Jean François Lyotard suggests that it is the sublime that has provoked this destructive, nihilistic tendency and given Modern and postmodern art its ‘impetus and axioms’ (Lyotard: 1979). As the 2010 Tate research project, The Sublime Object attests, the sublime is once again ‘now’. Painting was conspicuous in its absence from the project, perhaps because as Simon Morley states ‘most sublime artworks these days tend to be installations. It is certainly getting harder for painting, the traditional vessel for evoking visual sublimity, to elicit such effects’ (2010, p. 74). This thesis will examine Morley’s position by considering how the composition of the un-presentable may be alluded to through de-composition and corrosion in painting. An expressionist enquiry into the tension between figure and ground the thesis investigates a relationship between mark, surface and the sublime.(1) Notoriously difficult to capture, the sublime is intrinsically contradictory, making an effective, overarching theory on the subject all but impossible to sustain (Forsey: 2007). Highlighting some of the problems surrounding the theory of the sublime James Elkins, in his essay ‘Against the Sublime’ (2009), suggests that the term has been mistaken for a trans-historical category and that it has been used and abused to smuggle religious content into contemporary critical writing. Further more, he describes the post-Kantian postmodern sublime as so intricate and linguistically complex as to render it effectively redundant without substantial qualification. Elkins has called for a moratorium on the term sublime and a redress of language in favor of new, direct terms (2009). This project asks if painting can facilitate this redress and provide these terms. Note (1): An enquiry that applies a necessarily heuristic approach to a project engaged with subjective, felt experience in painting characterized by and articulated through the primacy of gestural abstraction.