Didactic prose is a specific type of narrative creation, a very important part of Lithuanian writings of the XIX century. The intention of such literature is to offer countrymen a possibility to enlighten one, to broaden their knowledge of the world, to deepen the consciousness of moral decisions. Apart from the aim of enlightenment this literature is often inclined to educate or moralize the addressee, to give him appropriate or inappropriate examples (exempla) that are good or wrong to follow. To prove didactic truths writers often set a “live example” in the centre of the writing – an example of a person (or people’s community); in the writing it is a character, or personage (literary portrait). The term “literary portrait” is described the most directly by the Russian literature researcher V.S.Barachovas. According to him the portrait is firstly necessary to mark the image of the literary personage; that is the way of the “literary portrait” appearance. The writer shows the literary portrait in a certain environment – in the plot of the writing where the described hero as if “lives”. Here his individuality, mindset, character is revealed while talking, thinking, also through behavior, various actions. According to Barachovas in the creative activity (literature creation), as well as in the biography, the individual living of the character is revealed showing him in diverse manners (see pg. 6-7). This master’s paper analyses the ways in which the mentioned literary... [to full text]

Kintant laikams, minios elgesio, mąstymo bruožai iš esmės lieka nepakitę. Masė vis dar pasiduoda neracionaliems sprendimams, idėjoms, yra valdoma įvairiausių emocijų. Kritiškas individo protas yra nugalimas absurdiško fanatizmo išraiškų. Šiandieninėje Lietuvos kultūroje, vienas iš ryškiausių minią užliejančios karštligės atitikmenų - tai krepšinio sirgaliai, skanduojantys patriotinius šūkius, stabais verčiantys žaidėjus. Šiuolaikiniame mene taip pat nelieka nepastebėta ši tema, analizuojamas krepšinio santykis su visuomene, jo reikšmės kaita skirtingais laikmečiais. Darbo objektas. Trijų tapybos darbų ciklas – sirgalių portretai. Gilinimasis į darbo temą padėjo pažinti šį masininį reiškinį, minios bruožus ir apskritai sąmoningiau įvertinti, koks yra asmeninis santykis su masine karštlige. / As times change, the behaviour of mass and way of thinking remain the same. Mass is still relying on irrational solutions, ideas and is controlled by various emotions. Absurd fanatic manifestations overcome the critical mind of an individual. Nowadays, in the Lithuanian culture, one of the most prominent display of the mass fever can be recognised in basketball fans that cheer, shout patriotic slogans and tend to turn basketball players into idols. In contemporary art this theme is not overlooked – the relation between basketball and the society is constantly being analysed, as well as the change of its meaning in different periods of time. The object of work. The cycle of three painting works – portraits of fans. The theme of the work focuses on this mass phenomenon, analyses the main features of the mass and helps to evaluate own goals more consciously.

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Open Studio: A Phase in Six Years of my Art Education is a true-to-scale reproduction of my graduate studio space, populated by a meticulously constructed life-size, wax self-portrait. Evoking Romantic imagery of the artist in the studio, the uncanniness of the wax figure creates an experience of the type that Mike Kelley has described as “banal [and] emptied of magic.” The figure’s eyes are closed and his gesture is as vulnerable as it is defensive. Almost teetering, but balanced within the space, the work poetically falls apart upon close inspection and reveals a narrative that’s open to interpretation.

Portrait painting is an art form that has been used by artists for years. I am using the portrait to convey a story. The story follows a boy's process of becoming a man. The discovery of old family photographs initially inspired the project. The rite of passage theme stems from this inquiry into the process of growing up. Several artists inspired my work in the formal and conceptual aspects of my portraits. Those artists include Paula Rego, Chuck Close, and Robert Henri. "Rites of passage" is a phrase that carries with it many meanings and issues. This creative project is both a consideration of the rites of passage theme and an investigation of the painted portrait. / Department of Art

Double Bind: Splitting identity and the body as an object is a research project consisting of studio-based practice presented mainly in video installation format. This work looks at hysterical symptoms as a performance of a body’s split identity. The project draws on the Lacanian theory of Mirror Stage which proposes that the self experienced by the subject, and the image of that self (represented in a mirror-like reflection, or an image) are different to each other, and the development of self-awareness as misrecognition of one’s self. As a conspicuous example of split body, Chapter One describes how the hysterical body, in clinical and artistic representation, is dissociated into multiple selves. In Chapter Two, I discuss some examples of contemporary performance artists who use themselves as subjects, but whose bodies become objects that do not portray the self. In the final chapter I explain how, in my video work, I objectify my own body and how I assess whether this is a mode of self-portraiture. / During the course of this research, I studied a wide range of medical resources and psychoanalytical literature, much of which employed visual illustration and documentation. For example, I have drawn inspiration from Jean-Martin Charcot’s photographic documents of female hysterics whom he treated as patients at the French hospital of La Salpêtrière in the late 19th century; in particular the figure of his most famous patient, known as Augustine. My research also involved studio-based investigation, such as experimentations with the performance of my own body in video format, and the contextual study of artistic and critical texts relating to contemporary media art. / The aim of this research is to demonstrate the ways in which my video performances split the body, creating an Other within one body that can be compared with the hysterical body of a patient, like Augustine, performing for her doctor. In this condition, I perform as the subject and the object of the gaze at the same time. My self-portrait is split in this way: it creates a body double, which I misrecognise as myself. But in doing so, I am both the director and the performer of the image. This is the double bind that my video work puts me into.

The subject of this dissertation is female self-portraiture in Australia of the interwar years, 1918 to 1939. The primary concern of this thesis is to consider self-portraiture as a conceptual process. Self-portrayal is understood as an act of cultural invention rather than an unmediated access to an essential core self. It is this invention and what is entailed in the process of self-imagining, rather than any formal analysis of the style, which is of greatest concern. (For complete abstract open document)

The thesis Mapping the Self-Portrait: Navigating Identity and Autobiography in Visual Art is a practical project. It explores the relationship between autobiography and self- portraiture, and how these notions of the self can be represented in visual art. The exhibition 360 Potential Truisms forms the major component in this thesis, and is accompanied by a written exegesis. This exegesis explores notions of the self-portrait and autobiography in relation to identity, with focus on a post-structural approach to fragmentation and movement. Artworks have been developed to reflect a shift towards an idea of the fragmented self, involving drawing, photography, and text to allow a constantly changing interpretation of self-portraiture.

Master of Letters (with Merit) / The objective of this paper is to examine the self-portrait paintings of Frida Kahlo and to explore the way in which they articulate a ‘self’ and ‘identity’ through creating an innovative feminine vocabulary. The aim of this creative research is to explore the way in which Frida Kahlo represented her sexual subjectivity in the body of self-portraits she produced in her short life time. The self-portraits, some of which were produced in a state of severe physical disability and chronic illness, were also created in the shadow of her famous partner- socialist Mexican muralist/ revolutionary Diego Rivera. An examination of the significant body of self-portrait paintings produced by Frida Kahlo, informed by her personal letters, poems, and photographs, broadens the conventional definitions of subjective self beyond the generic patterns of autobiographical narrative, characteristic of an inherently masculine Western ‘self’. In Kahlo’s self-portraits the representation of the urban Mexican proletarian woman-child draws stylistically from the domain of European self-portraiture, early studio photographic portraiture, and the biographical Mexican Catholic retablo art, with its indebtedness to the ancient Aztec Indian symbology of self.