Bibliography: leaves 75-80. / In this dissertation and series of paintings I wish to focus attention on the interconnection between knowledge and power. This is commented on in relation to socio-medical disciplines. The argument proposes that knowledge is a product of vested interests and should thus not be regarded as transcendent of the context in which it is used. This study examines attempts to naturalize race, class and gender through scrutiny and analyses of the human body. Section One considers specific historical cases which illustrate the use of knowledge as a disciplinary force. Surveillance, classification, objectification and an understanding of science as neutral are identified as central to the construction of difference. These themes are investigated with regard to: Lavater's physiognomy, Charcot's understanding of hysteria, the influence of photography on nineteenth century science, eugenics, degenerationism and racial definitions in South African law from 1948 to 1994. This section draws on scholarship and research published predominantly in the areas of sociology, medical history, anthropology and ethnology. Section One is intended as a parallel text to the series of paintings produced. Section Two offers a personal interpretation of some trends, methods and materials used throughout the series of paintings. The paintings comment on the themes of classification, objectification and discrimination mentioned in Section One. The series also reflects on the mutability of knowledge and the continuing relevance of past doctrines. Primary strategies employed in the paintings are decontextualization and recontextualization of pre-existent texts, an emphasis on aesthetics and attempts to involve the viewer in the acts of looking and interpretation. Section Three consists of reproductions of the twenty paintings made for a Masters of Fine Art degree. Sources and processes used in the paintings are listed.

Includes bibliographical references. / Simon Critchley introduces his book on death, philosophy and literature, Very Little - Almost Nothing, with a preface titled As my father, I have already died, and describes his work as an act of mourning. What follows is an account of his last moments with his father who died after a long struggle with lung cancer. Critchley missed his father's death by twenty minutes: A nurse took me to see him and then left me alone. The room was unlit and sparsely furnished. In pale winter light, he lay with a single sheet covering his corpse: tiny, withered and ravaged by cancer. I spent no more than five minutes alone with him, initially standing petrified, then sitting, and finally summoning up the courage to touch his cheek and nose and caress his forehead. It felt cool. So, this is what death looks like, I thought. This is what my death will look like.

As the title suggests, this dissertation text deals with repair, and while 'mending' also refers to sewing, here I use it in conjunction with healing and the transformation of an inner conflict. Coming from a family of embroiderers in Austria I use needle and thread as my tools and physical objects as triggers in search of what has been forgotten or repressed. The work centers largely around a shared history between my mother and myself, which though marked by many separations, the love for needlework connects us again and provides a meeting place that bridges the divide caused by absences in the past and in the present. Divided into two columns, 'academic' and 'personal', in subtitled paragraphs elaborate and reflect on 'memory', 'family narrative', 'trauma', 'needlework' and 'art-making as a way of personal transformation' in an attempt to understand the story of my life and how it fits into the larger family narrative. The catalog section of the text lists the art works that resulted from this engagement with my personal story, while the accompanying artists book offers an in-death view into the process.

Bibliography: leaves 94-98. / Painting presents an almost infinite range of possibilities to convey meaning through the versatility and potential of the medium. It is to this potential for mimicking and representing the real world that I wish to turn; for whilst the word painting refers to the manifestation of the physical object, it also, more importantly for this discussion, refers to the act of painting itself, the application of paint onto a surface in the articulation of an illusory reality. This ability to represent in paint, upon a two-dimensional surface, the real world in such a way as to cause in the viewer an experience which is somehow like that of looking at the world, is called naturalism.

This dissertation explores the major themes of Irma Stern's (1894-1966) representation of the black figurative subject in her African periods: Swaziland, Zanzibar and Congo (1922-1955). Germane to these periods are Stern's childhood experience in the Transvaal and her training and influences in Germany. My research aims to do the following: (1) address a gap in the current literature on Irma Stern and her African periods (2) to consider whether Stern's mature periods, Zanzibar and Congo reveal an imaginary 'primitivist' mode of representation. Central to my research is the question of Stern's identity as a woman, settler and Jew, as it is critical to exploring the relation between Stern as a white settler and that of her black figurative subjects as viewed through the discourse of 'primitivism'. My methodology involves drawing from various archives, primary and secondary literature on Stern and Stern's own writings. My visual methodology includes a comparative analysis of Stern's early paintings in relation to her influences and formal and iconographic analysis of select 'mature' paintings.

Includes bibliographical references. / The title of this dissertation is An Archaeology of Self. The first two chapters explore the historical and theoretical basis that has informed my creative work. It is predominantly concerned with artists who engage with the everyday in their art-making. The three main ideas elaborated upon in the body of the text are; the notion of mark making and trace as able to invoke the corporeal presence of the artists; the inclusion of quotidian objects and routines as subject matter within art that recontextualises them as worthy of attention; and the extent to which the representation or use of material objects, traces and leavings can retain significant meaning. The latter is explored in reference to artists who use an archaeological methodology in their work. An underlying theme in both practical and theoretical research is the concept of indexical trace that invokes the presence of its referent while paradoxically signalling its absence. The concluding chapters deal with my methodology and the processes of collection used in arriving at the works presented for examination.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 88-93). / I have produced a series of sculpted cast figures in the medium of cowhide as part of my Masters degree. This document, titled Locating Me in Order to See You, serves as an explication of the practical component. Initially I examine the broad context in which my sculpture has been produced, and that in which it will be presented and likely to be received. In attempting to position myself within Contemporary Art discourse, I have specifically considered how Contemporary Art from Africa is often read and comprehended by both those producing work on the continent and the Diaspora, and those interpreting, critiquing, collecting and marketing it, mainly in the West. The basic premise for this is a discussion of the inescapable labels of Black Artist and Black Art and what they imply within the context of Contemporary Art discourse with reference to Africa and more specifically, South Africa. As an emerging Contemporary African Artist I am faced with confronting some of the stereotypes and assumptions associated with art and artists of the continent and! or the legacy of the Apartheid regime.

Includes bibliographical references. / I was born in Cape Town, South Africa around the tumultuous time of the Soweto uprisings of 1976. The first few years of my life were spent living with relatives and friends of my mother in Langa while she worked in the city in various households as a domestic worker. Her occupation took her away for long periods of time. By the age of two my mother and I moved to Woodstock where we lived with a family that consisted of five adults, who each had children of their own all under one small roof. The house was always full of people.

Includes bibliographical references. / Why do skin, hair and fingernails that are desirable objects, belonging to a whole body and adding to its decoration, cause disgust and become markers of mortality when they are no longer part of the living body? When disembodied and separated into single strands, skin cells and nail clippings they repulse. In this project, by reconsidering, altering and curating dust, I produce artworks that allow for a new construction of its meaning. Extracted from my living spaces, the dust consists of fragments of objects that were once useful and contributed to a daily existence. In the form of household dust, they become useless. Through the creation of art objects I rework this substance so that it regains purpose. I view my body as a device for producing art, an instrument for construction as well as a producer of my chosen materials. I consider dust through the lens of various dualities: attraction and repulsion, fragility and strength, public and private, clean and dirty, order and chaos and presence and absence. As in all dualities, the potency of the one cannot fully function without the contrast of the other. Through the subtle altering of this non-matter (the dust), I have produced mark-making instruments, made use of it as props to aid performances and mediated its form through video pieces and photography. These products are an experiment in creating something from the non-thing. The material’s original use value is lost in its state as dust, rendering it without purpose - a found material that is always lost.

Includes bibliographical references. / How, and in what ways, might a visually - and artistically - inclined person gain knowledge from a body of ethnographic photographic objects? I approach this question by launching an inquiry into the Balobedu of Limpopo province, South Africa as masters of myth - making, the 1930s anthropologists as masters of perception and myth transmission, the camera as a mechanical tool that has no master and the photographic image and object as a slippery abstract, or thing, that resists taming. What binds Balobedu, anthropologists and photography in this relationship is their collaboration at particular points in time in the production of the knowledge that is now Khelobedu. Khelobedu refers to all knowledge, custom, practices and culture emanating from Bolobedu and its people. To do this, I assume, or play with, the character of ' motshwara marapo ' (keeper of the bones or master of ceremonies), a versed person who officiates in ceremonies involving multiple custodies, doing so by reciting stories and enacting activities that facilitate progress within ceremonies and rituals. My engagement explores the process of pacifying a disavowed ethnographic archive using the performative aspect of the photographic object's materiality with the aim of gaining knowledge of the indigenous and colonial, using concepts with origins in both categories