“In the decomposition of organic/botanic materiality, decayed and decaying exotic weeds are printed and imprinted on the host vessel: The surviving trace becomes a code - a sign - a semiotic map = disjecta membra: being there ... then destroyed... but still remaining.” THE BODY OF VISUAL AND WRITTEN RESEARCH, 'DECOMPOSE', is a cross-disciplinary interrogation, interpreting overlapping meanings in the Botanical Biodegradation of Weeds through Visual Art/Science practices and processes expressed as Text +Paintings. DECOMPOSE validates the Act of Art, Botanical Biodegradation of Weeds, as both: I. An expression of the Subjective, Expansive and Ephemeral nature of Art, Artist and Materials and II. An incarnation of the nature of Time and Sublime Beauty, that articulates, and expands perceptions of Art, Artist and Materials as Text + Paintings. The 'equation': DECAY + WEEDS = BEAUTY expands to encompass key elements in the DECOMPOSE body of research: BOTANICAL BIODEGRADATION + AUSTRALIAN EXOTIC, FERAL and NOXIOUS WEED SPECIES + ARTIST + MATERIALS + ART + SCIENCE + TIME = DECAY-PAINTINGS = RESEARCH = SUBLIME BEAUTY Argued by quantitative and qualitative example, DECOMPOSE is at once: I. Subjective: a conceptual and translative process expressed through the personal vision of the artist. II. Expansive: an interrogation of a single process, at once finite and infinite in meanings and extractions. III. Ephemeral: investigations and results signifying the specific and universal decay of all things. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)