This study examines the means by which four South African woman artists, namely Penny Siopis, Jo Ractliffe, Lien Botha and Tania Kühl use memory and history as themes to represent social and political events in South Africa. The foundation of this investigation is a critical study of the meaning of history and memory within the context of the candidate’s contemporary social and political milieu. This investigation is facilitated by a number of published and unpublished works by various authors relating to the issues in visual arts; particularly social and political history as applied to personal memory and history. Chapter one explores these terms particularly in relation to the visual arts. Chapter one identifies terms that are vital to the dissertation and some of the literature and methodologies used in the research. These are divided into the subheadings of: terms; women, politics and art; art and documentary photography; literature review; methodology and conclusion.. Examples of each artist’s work are selected for a comprehensive analysis in chapter two. These examples are methodically studied by media and techniques used to produce the artworks and include a critical analysis of the subject matter of the artwork. The examples were selected primarily for their content in connection with the candidate’s own productions of practical work towards the MAFA degree. Chapter two is divided into four main sections, one dedicated to each artist: Penny Siopis, Jo Ractliffe, Lien Botha and Tania Kühl. These four sections are divided into three subsections: medium and techniques; subject matter and conclusion. Chapter three points out similarities and differences in the work of the four selected artists in order to conclude the candidate’s findings during the dissertation. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2010.

This dissertation will contextualize and analyse selected works of the South African ceramist Marietjie van der Merwe (bl935 dl992; known professionally as Marietjie, aka Mariki, Marikie) between 1960-1988. The text consists of three chapters. The first chapter will outline the life of Marietjie van der Merwe, discuss her political and religious affiliations and ends with a chronological outline of her ceramics. This introductory chapter will help the reader to gain an insight into her character and personality which influenced the work she produced. The second chapter comprises two main sections. The first deals with the ceramists who influenced Marietjie's work. In her early art training years Laura Andreson, her teacher, played a key role in inspiring and influencing Marietjie's work. The Natzlers influenced Marietjie indirectly through Laura Andreson who in turn had been taught by them. Rudolf Staffel manipulated aspects in porcelain inspired Marietjie's later works of the 1980s. The second half of this chapter deals with the influence that Marietjie had on institutions and her students. The works of Katherine Glenday, a student and later colleague, are discussed and comparisons made. Marietjie van der Merwe's contributed significantly to the modernist foundations of South African studio ceramics, was mentor and studio advisor to the ceramists of Rorke's Drift Art and Craft Centre and was a lecturer at the former Department of Fine Art and History of Art, University of Natal. Links with Nordic countries and Malin Lundbohm (now Sellmann) are drawn. Throughout this chapter the artist's work is compared and discussed with that of Marietjie's. This dissertation concludes with a documentary study of six selected pieces. Original photographs facilitate visually what is been discussed in the text. These samples are found in Iziko South African National Gallery, Tatham Art Gallery and from the private collection of Lara Du Plessis. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2007.

This thesis will aim to investigate the extent to which Tracey Rose's Ciao Bella can be said to allegorically perform a dialectical enfolding of the dichotomous categories of meaning/nonmeaning; image/text; past/present and original/translation. The dual concepts of performance and performativity will be utilized as a means to explore the notion of interpretation as a meaning-making process and as an engagement between artist, artwork and viewer that is necessarily open-ended and in a state of constant change and flux. Rose's performance of Ciao Bella will be read as one that questions the illusion of unmediated representation by parodying and creatively misreading a multiplicity of visual, textual and musical representations so as to foreground the politics of representation. The representational figure of allegory, as one that defines itself in opposition to the Romantic conception of the unified symbol, will be put to work so as to reveal the ways in which Rose's performance works to critically undermine various positivistic attitudes toward self-identity, gender, race, politics, history, authorial intention and interpretation.

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment in compliance with the requirements for the Masters Degree in Technology: Fine Art, Durban Institute of Technology, 2012. / I believe that the election in 1994 of the first democratic government in South Africa has presented a challenge to all South Africans in different ways. I believe that one of the principal challenges that the 1994 elections presented to my conservative Calvinistic Afrikaner community was to address its personal, family, community, national and international identity/ies. Arising out of this perspective and perception, I have explored my and my family memory/ies to answer questions about my identity. My study is a journey of awareness: a self-study exploring my identity through critical self-reflection and the development of my art practice. My self-study is multi- disciplinary: it employs interchangeable methodologies allowing for various forms of knowledge generation. My journey of awareness is a “living theory” in which I have developed my “living standards of judgement” and addressed my “living contradictions” (Whitehead 1985; 1989; 2008a; b; c; d). My study illustrates the symbiotic research and creative process of developing an understanding of my identity as a white Afrikaans woman through practicing my art. My art practice assisted in the action/reflection process as well acting as a tool for social action and transformation. / M

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.

Over three decades of research has shown that memories have significant effect on the behaviour, attitudes, beliefs, and identities of individuals and collectives, revealing also how experiences of trauma and acts of narrativisation have pertinence to the ways in which memories are stored and reconstructed. In this thesis a link is developed between memory, trauma, narrativisation processes and the interpretation of works by Jane Alexander, a contemporary artist whose work is informed by observations about South African life. Alexander’s sculptures are revealed to be not only important vessels of collective memories and experiences, but also evocations of individuals’ countermemories and traumas that remain unarticulated and invisible. Through an exploration of the workings of memory and its relation to her art, it is revealed how the past continues to exert its influence on many of South Africa’s present sociopolitical concerns and interpersonal dynamics. Indeed constantly changing memories have a significant effect on future generations’ perceptions of, and connectedness to, the past. While theories about memory have been deployed in Art History as well as the Humanities in general, Alexander’s work has not previously been considered in light of the influence of these ideas. This thesis thus contributes a new dimension to literature on the artist.

This dissertation explores the impact of Bushman images, and the writings of Lucy Lloyd and Wilhelm Bleek (working with the Breakwater Bushmen) on three art works of Pippa Skotnes. They are The Return III (1988), For //Kunn (1993) and Heaven’s Things (1999). It is argued that Bushman imagery, being the result of shamanic trance activities is characterised by imagery, which mammals universally share. The use of the same imagery by the Surrealists in the twentieth century arises not from an intimate interaction with the spirit realm/dream world but from the European longing for an altered reality. Skotnes appropriates Bushman imagery in her prints, narrating the tragic fate of the Bushman. She laments the loss of the transcendental relationship between Man and the Universe. The exploitation, adoption and marketing of Bushman imagery by the tourist industry marks the distinction between her respectful treatment and the materialism of South Africans. / Visual Arts / M.A. (Visual Arts)

Dissertation is presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Masters Degree of Technology: Fine Art, Durban University of Technology, 2009. / This dissertation was researched in two main parts. The first enquiry was to establish whether the Afrikaner women practised any form of craft during their time of interment in the Anglo-Boer War concentration camps, during 1899-1902. The second part explores the appropriation of craft within the Post-Modern context by five South African artists. During this research into the craft practises of Afrikaner women in the concentration camps, I discovered that this particular issue has not been satisfactorily documented. The reasons for this are directly connected to the patriarchal system of the Calvinist Afrikaner. The impact which this system had on the craft practices of Afrikaner women and the lack of documentation thereof, are discussed. The paucity of information on Afrikaner women‟s history led to primary research where I gained the information I needed from the descendents of interned women. The findings of this research includes various forms of needlecraft such as embroidery, quilting, crocheting, and dress and bonnet making. Amongst the artefacts found were two ceramic dogs made in the camp. Various forms of tin and wire artefacts were also found. The contribution to the impoverished Afrikaner women by Hobhouse, the South African Agricultural Association and the South African Women‟s Federation is explained in relation to this dissertation. The freedom that Post-Modern thought created amongst artists enabled them to explore exciting ways of executing their art. The five South African artists whose work I chose to explore are Billy Zangewa, Sue Pam-Grant, Gina Waldman, Antionette Murdoch and Nirmi Ziegler. Their art practices are varied but the common denominator is the incorporation of various forms of traditional feminine craft into their work. They subvert the patriarchal order, draw attention to land issues, explore women‟s fragility and raise awareness concerning the abuse of the environment. I conducted an interview with Ziegler and relied on written documentation for the research concerning the other artists. I also made use of my own analysis and instinct as a woman and mother to interpret some works. As an Afrikaner woman I execute my work by using traditional feminine craft and specific motives found during my research. I deliver commentary on the lack of vi documentation of all of Afrikaner women‟s history. I use myself as an example of an Afrikaner woman and document my own history within the greater Afrikaner history which is contained and embedded within the history of South Africa. My research into and documentation of the craft practises of Afrikaner women during and directly after the Anglo-Boer War adds to the body of knowledge concerning the history of Afrikaner women. The same applies to the work of the five artists I explored. The diversity of material, concept and execution of their work will add some knowledge to the existing body of knowledge about their work, but more so to the documentation of women's history. / M

Art as an expression of spirituality and theology has the artist as a potential visionary and mediator of the spiritual. All over the world and in South Africa, the visual has been used to illustrate thought patterns, religious themes, religiousity, and to draw people closer to God. However, questions arise about how the visual images depicted by visionaries/artists express social movements, and more deeply, spiritual longings of God for liberation and life. This dissertation explores the question of representation of women's spirituality and theology for liberation and life in contemporary South Africa through visual arts. With a particular look at the lives and work of two women artists of KwaZulu Natal- Dina Cormick and Bonnie Ntshalintshali, I map the interface between religion, art, spirituality and theology, and expressions of reality of those who are dominated people. I look at women's spirituality in South Africa, art as theology, creative expressions as ways to hide and reveal, and at the specific artists in whose lives and work these questions intersect. I argue that visual art is a powerful means of both shaping and expressing spirituality and theology, and if 'read' with attention and discipline, reveals incipient movements of the Spirit. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2001.