Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 414-440). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (MFA)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 1988. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 51).

“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)

This study traces the adaptation of the traditional gathering practices of Anglo/Celtic women to the landscape of Colonial Australia, thus developing a context for contemporary land-based art practices. Traditional gathering practices became one of the important forces that influenced and shaped the work of many women artists in post colonial Australia. Interacting with the landscape on a personal level helped contextualize women's gathering role into a contemporary theme, which linked past knowledge to present day voices. The author's art work is an interpretation of this traditional gathering practice. By relating herbal knowledge to present day concerns, she is able to extend the knowledge of past generations of women gatherers into present day images. The art work is also a diary of experiments, that are concerned with preserving the dye making recipes that have been handed down for generations. These botanical experiments have enabled the author to re-present herbal knowledge that took hundreds of years to glean, and to extend the use of the dyes obtained to create the art works. / Master of Arts (Hons) (Creative Arts)

Art and the Greater Good: Ecology and the Leisure Economy is a research project concerned with exploring how one could alternatively address the environmental issues of our day through site-specific art. Central to this investigation has been attending to the ways historical and contemporary accounts of environment politics, site specificity, land and environmental art could resonate within a more modest artistic gesture. The resulting work Would you go on without me? reflects the possibility of this by its position in an indeterminate zone; that draws together the demotic, gardening, rainwater harvesting, play and ecology into the manifold of environmental art.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Western Sydney, 2004. / A thesis presented to the University of Western Sydney, College of Arts, Education and Social Sciences, School of Contemporary Arts, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Contemporary Arts. Includes bibliographies. Electronic version minus appendices 2, 3, 4 is also available online at: http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/29745.

Exegesis (MA--Art and Design)--AUT University, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references. Also held in print (68leaves : ill. ; 22 x 30 cm. + 1 CD-ROM) in the Archive at the City Campus (T 779.82 GAN)

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2001. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Botanical art consists of a complex combination of scientific fact and aesthetic awareness, and is concerned with more than the realistic representation of a plant and its flowers. It goes beyond the visual description of scientific information and speaks about the contributions artists have made through history to the conventions of both art and science. It contains a unique visual language, conventions which we read intelligently and an evolved tradition, and it is this language and the development of these conventions within the genre of South African botanical art, which this thesis investigates. In South Africa botanical art developed as a direct result of European interest in the flora and the colonisation of this country by the West. A brief history of responses to South African plants is discussed in the Introduction in order to begin to establish an understanding of this tradition and to contextualise the contributions made by 19th-and 20th -century South African botanical artists. Now that postmodernity has called for the reassessment and questioning of 'given truths', alternative ways of assessing botanical art are slowly evolving. Through study and the comparison of botanical art and artists of South Africa their evaluation as artists is reconsidered. This issue of defining art and artists is the subject of Chapter One of this study. Some of the factors that have a bearing on this include: relationships between text and image; art and science; art and illustration; and how society's expectations of gender roles affect the production of botanical art. In order to establish a context from which to discuss plant imagery in South Africa, it is important to study the history and development of botanical art in this country. Chapter Two discusses the emergence and development of this art form and its artists, starting with a short description of people and events from the 1600s and then takes a comprehensive look at developments in the 19th and 20m centuries. For the artists working within the genre of botanical art, the conventions and inventions are often explicitly formulated. It is an art based on the logic, scrutiny and informative tradition of science, where the main objective is to represent a plant's structural essence. Fundamental to our response to botanical art, however, is the style and technique employed by the artist. Chapter Three is devoted to a detailed discussion of the work of selected contemporary South African botanical art and artists. By comparing their work it is possible to establish trends and developments in representation and the role played by mediums and techniques in this highly skilled art form. Since this research has both a theoretical and a practical component, Chapter Four is devoted to discussion of my own work within the botanical art genre. I describe and illustrate several related series of paintings and explore established conventions and ways of developing my own stylistic identity as a botanical artist. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Botaniese kuns bestaan uit 'n komplekse kombinasie van wetenskaplike feite en estetiese bewustheid, en is gemoeid met baie meer as net die realistiese voorstelling van 'n plant en sy blomme. Dit gaan verder as net die blote visuele uitbeelding van wetenskaplike informasie, en behels die bydraes wat kunstenaars deur die geskiedenis tot die konvensies van beide kuns en die wetenskap gemaak het. Botaniese kuns besit 'n unieke visuele taal, konvensies wat intelligent gelees word, en 'n ontwikkelde tradisie. Hierdie tesis ondersoek juis hierdie spesiale taal en ontwikkeling van konvensies binne die genre van Suid-Afrikaanse botaniese kuns. Botaniese kuns in Suid-Afrika het ontwikkel as In direkte gevolg van Europese belangstelling in die flora, en Westerse kolonialisasie van hierdie land. In die Inleidingword daar kortliks gekyk na die geskiedenis van die hantering van Suid-Afrikaanse plante, en het ten doelom eerstens 'n begrip van hierdie tradisie daar te stel, en tweedens om die bydraes van 19de en 20ste eeuse Suid-Afrikaanse botaniese kunstenaars te kontekstualiseer. Sedert Postmodernisme die herevaluering en bevraagtekening van gegewewe waarhede aangewakker het, is die ontwikkeling van alternatiewe maniere van kyk na botaniese kuns stadig besig om plaas te vind. Deur die bestudering en vergelyking van botaniese kuns en kunstenaars van Suid-Afrika, word die botaniese kunstenaar se status as kunstenaar uitgelig. Hierdie kwessie oor die defmieëring van kuns en kunstenaars is die onderwerp van Hoofstuk 1 van hierdie werkstuk. 'n Paar van die faktore wat In invloed op laasgenoemde het, sluit in: verhoudinge tussen beeld en teks; kuns en wetenskap; kuns en illustrasie; en hoe kwessies van geslag soos waargeneem deur die samelewing die produsering van botaniese kuns beïnvloed. Dit is belangrik om die geskiedenis en ontwikkeling van botaniese kuns in Suid-Afrika te bestudeer, sodat daar 'n konteks geskep kan word waarbinne die afbeelding van plante in hierdie land bespreek kan word. Hoofstuk 2 behandel die totstandkoming en ontwikkeling van hierdie kunsvorm en sy kunstenaars, en begin met 'n kort beskrywing van mense en gebeurtenisse van die 1600s wat gevolg word deur 'n uitgebreide kyk na ontwikkelinge gedurende die 19de en 20ste eeue. Vir die kunstenaars wat werk binne die genre van botaniese kuns, is die konvensies en bevindings van die medium dikwels breedvoerig geformuleer. Dit is 'n kunsvorm gebasseer op die logiese, navorsbare en insiggewende tradisie van die wetenskap, waar die hoofdoel die voorstelling van 'n plant se strukturele essensie is. Fundementeel in die benadering tot botaniese kuns is die styl en tegniek wat deur die kunstenaar gebruik word. Hoofstuk 3 word gewy aan 'n gedetailleerde bespreking van die werk van geselekteerde kontemporêre Suid-Afrikaanse bot~iese kuns en kunstenaars. Deur hul werk te vergelyk is dit moontlik om tendense en ontwikkelings in die voorstelling en aanbieding van botaniese kuns te bepaal, en wat die rol van verskillende mediums en tegnieke in hierdie hoogs geskoolde kunsvorm behels. Weens die feit dat hierdie navorsing uit 'n teoretiese en praktiese komponent bestaan, word Hoofstuk 4 gewy aan 'n bespreking van my praktiese werk binne die genre van botaniese kuns. Ek beskryf en illustreer verskeie verwante reekse werke en kyk na bestaande konvensies en die maniere hoe my eie stilistiese identiteit as botaniese kunstenaar kan ontwikkel binne die medium.

This dissertation considers nature imagery in selected South Afiican ceramics and printmaking. The main focus is on ecological issues in recent art productions. The text consists of five chapters. The first examines the ideologies of Fritjof Capra in relation to issues about deep ecology and ecofeminism; this chapter seeks to clarify the scope of the words 'land' and 'landscape' as used in a late 20th century context. The second chapter examines some historical works and ideas that have influenced perceptions of nature imagery in South Afiica. Chapters three, four and five constitute the main body of the thesis, and examine nature imagery in selected examples of contemporary printmaking and ceramics. Chapter three investigates selected landscape images ofceramist Esias Bosch and printmakers Gerda Scholtemeijer and Kim Berman. In chapter four the focus is on the flora as the point of reference. Prints of Gerhard Marx, Douglas Goode, EIsa Pooley and Karel Nel, who were all participants in the Art meets Science: Flowers as Images exhibition, will be examined. Important issues such as the separation ofbotanical and fine art, and art and science will be discussed with reference to their work. This will be followed by discussion of works of Susan Sellschop (a ceramic mural) and Bronwen Jane Heath (a wood engraving) in order to demonstrate the different intentions and outcomes ofthese to artists. Three dimensional works of the three ceramists, Lesley-Anne Hoets, Samantha Read-and Katherine Glenday are discussed in the final section of chapter four. Chapter five examines the interrelationship oflandscape and land. This chapter comprises two main sections. The first deals with aspects of landownership in South Africa reflected in recent ceramics and printmaking. Examples of the work of Marion Arnold and Ellalou O'Meara reinterpret images of early explorers and colonists situating them in a contemporary arena, demonstrating connections between past and present. Landownership is the overt subject in the Fee Halsted Berning, whose ceramic relief panel reflects a different perspective of landownership from the prints ofthe Schmidtsdrift artists. The second section surveys work of four artists whose images draw attention to ecological matters. Wendy Ross, Diana Carmichael, Marion Arnold and Carol Hofrneyr create images that higWight different aspects of the fragile balance of nature. / Thesis (M.A.) - University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2000

Thesis (M.A. (Hons.)) -- University of Western Sydney, 2003. / "A thesis presented to the University of Western Sydney in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (Honours) Creative Arts, December 2003" Includes bibliography.