The research of a practice led PhD in Fine Arts consists of interrelated artwork and writing (Macleod and Holdridge 2005:197). In the dual practical and theoretical research for this PhD I examined drawing as a generative medium in art making. This thesis constitutes the theoretical aspect of such research, which is rooted primarily in artistic practice and not in theory. As the other, practical aspect of this PhD I have produced and exhibited original art works, namely works in paint and drawing media. The thesis presented here is an integrative text supporting this practical aspect. It examines the role and process of drawing as a contemporary medium of artistic expression, and pays special attention to its generative nature. The focus on drawing stems from the fact that drawing plays a seminal role in all aspects of my art-making. The thesis examines the body of art works produced during this research as well as the artistic process and methodology used to produce it. It also contextualises the research within the contemporary Fine Art field where drawing has become an ascendant, primary and legitimate medium of artistic expression. In the history of mainly Western art since Classical Antiquity, drawing served an essential and predominantly, though not exclusively, preparatory function. In the last fifty years the status of drawing has shifted, so that it has become a legitimate primary medium of expression for many contemporary artists. The historical function of preparation is consequently no longer the primary guiding rationale for drawing. The status of drawing as secondary and incomplete is now also obsolete. As a consequence of this recent radical function and status shift, current drawing discourse and practice is continually open to question and exploration. Moreover, there is little consensus about the nature of drawing among key players in the Fine Art field. This, as well as the ambiguous nature of drawing which allows it to be a constituent of other media as well as an independent medium, complicates any attempt to define drawing strictly. Having given an outline of the parameters of my specific research topic and my rationale for choosing it, the text proffers a working definition of drawing. Notwithstanding the challenging nature of this task a working definition is necessary to discuss the focus of the research—drawing. The thesis next examines my idiosyncratic use of drawing. Lastly, I address the central question of the thesis, namely, what accounts for the generative nature of drawing? The title of the research, Drawing as a Generative Medium in Art Making, may seem to suggest that the generative potential of drawing is peculiar to the medium as a discrete entity. This research concluded that while drawing is indeed eminently suited to such a function, this exploratory and innovative capacity is the likely outcome of a complex of factors. These factors span artistic approach, drawing process and medium. These inextricably connected factors are difficult to treat discretely. Each of them plays an essential role in this non-formulaic, nuanced and dynamic thinking and art making process. It was therefore concluded that media other than drawing, if combined with a similar complex of factors, may have a marked generative potential as well. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2013.

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.

The thesis will focus on documenting, analysing and interpreting the motifs for the ceramics of Rorke’s Drift Art and Craft Centre Ecumenical (Evangelical) Lutheran Church (RDACC ELC, often called ELC Art and Craft Centre, hereinafter referred to as ‘Rorke’s Drift’) which were donated to the University of KwaZulu-Natal by Mark Bernstein. It is hoped that local indigenous narratives and visual designs in relation to Basotho and Zulu cultural identity will be outlined in the form of a catalogue. All vessel forms in the Bernstein Collection (as it will be referred to in this thesis) will focus on the figurative works and iconographic signifiers that represent local cultures. Ceramic works by the following ceramists will form the main argument of my thesis: Gordon Mbatha, Dinah Molefe, Ivy Molefe, Ephraim Ziqubu, Lindumusa Mabaso and Joel Sibisi of the Pottery Workshop. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2012.

The aim of this dissertation is to contextualise the use of porcelain by the South African ceramist Thelma Marcuson (1919-2009). This paper focuses on her ceramics in the Tatham Art Gallery’s Permanent Collection in Pietermaritzburg. I hope to give recognition to Marcuson as she is considered one of the pioneer South African studio potters by Garth Clark and Lynne Wagner’s in Potters of Southern Africa as she is ranked amongst the top fifteen in that distinct group (appendix 4: Potters’ art demo). This dissertation is divided into three chapters. Chapter one primarily focuses on the influence of contemporary European studio potters on Marcuson’s work, in particular that of Lucie Rie, Mary Rogers and Ruth Duckworth. This chapter also examines the development of ceramics from industrial ceramics, involving mass productions in factories, to the modernist revival of studio ceramics by Bernard Leach, where each piece was handmade and often regarded as an art form, as in the work of the twentieth century British ceramist William Staite-Murray. Chapter two focuses on Marcuson and South African studio ceramics and considers South African potters who had an influence on Marcuson’s early training, and also looks at her involvement with the Association of Potters of Southern Africa (APSA) founded in 1972. In the last section of this chapter I will discuss ceramic practices and technical issues about porcelain and high-firing glazes, specifying how they are made and used, with particular reference to South African developments and local studio potters. As Marcuson was particularly interested in porcelain, this chapter also outlines glaze applications with specific reference to porcelain and firing methods. Chapter three focuses on Marcuson’s ceramics and offers in particular an analysis of the nine pieces of her work in the Permanent Collection of the Tatham Art Gallery in Pietermaritzburg. Through my research I was able to acquire photographic documentation from other South African museums for comparative purposes, such as the Durban Art Gallery and the William Humphreys Art Gallery in Kimberley, as well as some private collections (see appendix 1). / Thesis (M.A)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2012.

This dissertation centres on the classification of artists’ books based on the qualities they possess as works of art as well as the intimate engagement required by the reader in order to experience such works in their entirety. Among the qualities investigated are intimacy through the use of novelty devices, haptics, text, narrative and concrete systems, space, and shape. These qualities are exemplified through works by Estelle Liebenberg-Barkhuizen and Cheryl Penn. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2013.

This study examines metaphoric expression as an innovative phenomenon in This study examines metaphoric expression as an innovative phenomenon in the creative process and explor.es theO!i_~s_~f_ metap~or as a model for changing our perceptions of reality. Innovation is taken to be the creation and extension of meaning via metaphoric reference and projection, an imaginative -----------"----------- ------_.--- -_. _~~- _~ ---- str~Lct~rimLOf ~~!i~f!~ !h,at !:.E!!l1v~nt~ealit and esents it as~ fiC!ion~ While fiction refers to those worlds made in the creative act of producing works of art, worlds refer to both the exterior manifestations of works, as well as the interior world as a source of symbolic worlds. This study thus explores metaphoric reference and projection as a means by which we understand and figuratively express experience and the role metaphor plays in the creative strategies of my own practice as a visual artist and those of the contemporary British artist Tony Cragg. In my own recent working practice, in relation to the innovative role of metaphor, the notion of psychic or metaphorical disruption is explored. This is understood as a suspension of logical or literal reference to reality and as the condition for a metaphoric or analogical response to experience. This form of disengagement brought about by psychological and emotional upheaval, allows me to disembark from dominant conceptual and emotional frameworks and corresponds to the semantic openings brought about by metaphoric reference and interpretation. These disruptions manifest themselves as primitive iconic conditions that provide routes in the creative process conducive to discovery, restructuring and invention. In my work this is principally achieved by the activity of drawing. I describe drawing as a mythic activity of attempting to close the gap on an elusive empirical world and as a means of making new worlds. Interpretation or reading the drawings, their surfaces and calligraphic marks, is' also part of the lyrical process of making ii fidions, metaphorical digressions and progressions towards deciphering and re-organising worlds. These worlds are both virtual and material spaces. In all the work, what appears to be disruptive or discordant brings about the condition for renewal and reorientation in the world. The \YOrk of Tony Cragg (b.1949) is discussed as an example of contemporary art pradice where metaphor is evident as a model for changing perceptions. Early in his career Cragg explored scientific models of investigation, as explanatory means for understanding the world. His work refleds an endeavour to 'humanise' these scientific models by making images that fundion as alternative and complementary 'thinking models' (Cragg in Celant :172). His working process is understood as an attempt to construct a novel referential scheme for our encounters with the physical \YOrld of objeds both natural and manufadured. His sculptures are thus interpreted as visual manifestations of metaphorical disruption and innovation. Often made from discarded waste, his sculptures emerge from the material ruin of a prior physical order, and an evolving mental order. In both instances, physically and conceptually, they carry traces of former selves, with the potential to .extend into something new. As a loose framevvork for this discussion, certain theories of mind and metaphor that provide some insights into my own \YOrking pradice and what I perceive to be those of Tony Cragg, are briefly examined. Principally, these include the theory of metaphor of the philosopher Paul Ricoeur, but also some more general views concerning cognition and imagination. These include the early theories of Giambattista Vico concerning the creative role of the imaginative and metaphorical capacities of the mind.. the creative process and explor.es theories of metaphor as a model for changing our perceptions of reality. Innovation is taken to be the creation and extension of meaning via metaphoric reference and projection, an imaginative -----------"----------- ------_.--- -_. _~~- _~ ---- str~Lct~rimLOf ~~!i~f!~ !h,at !:.E!!l1v~nt~ealit and esents it as~ fiC!ion~ While fiction refers to those worlds made in the creative act of producing works of art, worlds refer to both the exterior manifestations of works, as well as the interior world as a source of symbolic worlds. This study thus explores metaphoric reference and projection as a means by which we understand and figuratively express experience and the role metaphor plays in the creative strategies of my own practice as a visual artist and those of the contemporary British artist Tony Cragg. In my own recent working practice, in relation to the innovative role of metaphor, the notion of psychic or metaphorical disruption is explored. This is understood as a suspension of logical or literal reference to reality and as the condition for a metaphoric or analogical response to experience. This form of disengagement brought about by psychological and emotional upheaval, allows me to disembark from dominant conceptual and emotional frameworks and corresponds to the semantic openings brought about by metaphoric reference and interpretation. These disruptions manifest themselves as primitive iconic conditions that provide routes in the creative process conducive to discovery, restructuring and invention. In my work this is principally achieved by the activity of drawing. I describe drawing as a mythic activity of attempting to close the gap on an elusive empirical world and as a means of making new worlds. Interpretation or reading the drawings, their surfaces and calligraphic marks, is' also part of the lyrical process of making ii fidions, metaphorical digressions and progressions towards deciphering and re-organising worlds. These worlds are both virtual and material spaces. In all the work, what appears to be disruptive or discordant brings about the condition for renewal and reorientation in the world. The \YOrk of Tony Cragg (b.1949) is discussed as an example of contemporary art pradice where metaphor is evident as a model for changing perceptions. Early in his career Cragg explored scientific models of investigation, as explanatory means for understanding the world. His work refleds an endeavour to 'humanise' these scientific models by making images that fundion as alternative and complementary 'thinking models' (Cragg in Celant :172). His working process is understood as an attempt to construct a novel referential scheme for our encounters with the physical \YOrld of objeds both natural and manufadured. His sculptures are thus interpreted as visual manifestations of metaphorical disruption and innovation. Often made from discarded waste, his sculptures emerge from the material ruin of a prior physical order, and an evolving mental order. In both instances, physically and conceptually, they carry traces of former selves, with the potential to .extend into something new. As a loose framevvork for this discussion, certain theories of mind and metaphor that provide some insights into my own \YOrking pradice and what I perceive to be those of Tony Cragg, are briefly examined. Principally, these include the theory of metaphor of the philosopher Paul Ricoeur, but also some more general views concerning cognition and imagination. These include the early theories of Giambattista Vico concerning the creative role of the imaginative and metaphorical capacities of the mind. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2002.

This research examines the significance of water as it has been used as a subject in the visual arts, with particular concentration on the use of geometry as a means of accessing pictorial possibilities. The study focuses specifically on selected paintings by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851), Oscar Claude Monet (1840-1926) and Pat Steir (1940-) including some of Steir's etchings, to further demonstrate her thought processes and techniques. It is argued that the paintings of all three artists, although widely divergent yet include threads of commonality and convergence. All explore the fundamental structure of nature (in this case water) through geometry. In addition, spatial concepts through the use of light and colour are closely intertwined and give rise to metaphysical implications. Turner and Monet broke the bonds of the existing academic composition and style of painting. Their paintings pointed the way for artists of the twentieth century, like Steir to further explore the close relationship between the motif and abstract painting. References to paintings, other than the selected paintings, by these artists will be made in order to illustrate their different approaches yet similar objectives. Finally the relevance of the study to the candidate's own work will be correlated. The dissertation intends to offer a new interpretation of water as a subject in painting, by illuminating and illustrating aspects of the selected paintings by Turner, Monet and Steir. In conclusion, it is anticipated that this discourse will enrich and complement previous interpretations of water, when used as a subject in visual art. It is also envisaged that the study will suggest further research on the subject. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Kwazulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2004.

The central purpose of this dissertation is to discuss different ways in which land and the broader natural environment has been used as a vehicle or medium in art-making, with a specific focus on the works of Jenny Cullinan and Lynne Hull and the candidate. The work centres on artworks that are in the landscape, of the landscape, in the earth, of the earth or predominantly concerned with ecological issues and the inter-relatedness of all living systems. It is argued that artworks included under the general appellation land or environmental art may be widely divergent in character, notwithstanding threads of commonality and convergence. In addition, the often fluid or ambiguous nature of the terminology associated with this area of investigation has necessitated some definition of key terms. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2001.