My creative process is a ritual I use to examine my personal narrative. Digital photography is a way for me to mine an object or environment with an obsessive emphasis, and extract an image that signifies something relatable. By employing tropes derived from my personal narrative, and filtering them through image manipulation software; I am able to dramatize aspects of perspective and scale. With an automatic mark guided by printed images and projections of digital panoramic images, the surface and resulting picture comes into focus. This is a way for me to move past my experiences. Achieving this level of intimacy with the mundane objects or environments makes it possible for me to develop a personal iconography.

Inaug.--Diss.--Munich. / Bibliography: p. 140-141.

Viewed from odd angles, the ordinary looks new and the commonplace becomes unusual. The purpose of my creative project, Re-envisionina the Ordinary: A Study of Vantage Points in Painting, was to use unusual vantage points and multiple viewpoints as compositional devices to show familiar household scenes and objects in a new way. Analysis of artworks and writings by realist painters such as Edgar Degas, Paul Cezanne and Pierre Bonnard helped me learn how each of these artists used unusual or multiple viewpoints While researching these artists, I began to understand why space is one of the fundamental issues of art. I found that, as an artist, I cannot use vantage points and viewpoints without considering the larger issue of space.Artists throughout time have wrestled with the question: how does one represent three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface? By presenting different treatments of space, I showed how various artists have answered the question. Leonardo da Vinci solved the problem using linear perspective. Edgar Degas and Pierre Bonnard answered the question usingoriental space and unusual or multiple viewpoints. Paul Cezanne's solution was a new system of unified space.Contemporary artists provide other answers to the question of space. Rene Magritte used the illusionary devices of linear perspective to paint his surreal world. Philip Pearlstein returned to Degas' and Cezannes' concept of space to emphasize both the three-dimensionality of the figures and the twodimensionality of the picture plane. David Hockney found his solution in the multiple viewpoints of cubism.My creative project is my answer to the question. I integrated unusual vantage points, and multiple viewpoints to create ten paintings with unified space. I used some conventions of linear perspective to show depth. For example, sizes and details in my paintings diminish with distance. I then contradicted the three-dimensionality by using some conventions of oriental space that flatten the picture plane: oblique perspective, overlapping and positioning an object next to the front surface. / Department of Art

The objective of my research is to develop a body of work for exhibition based on an examination of the ways that corporate space, as exemplified by the foyers and conference rooms of contemporary corporate offices, reflect societal anxieties about wealth and power. These works will draw on the history of painting, with particular reference to 17th century Dutch still life painting, as a framework within which to conduct the exploration of contemporary space. This will be done by applying or interpreting the principles, motifs and techniques used in that period in the visual representation of the connection between wealth and decadence and western culture's ambiguous attitude towards the creation and accumulation of wealth. Boardrooms, corporate foyers and office interiors have developed into instantly recognisable types of space with a particular atmosphere, typified by large empty space and the use of materials such as marble and granite and surfaces with reflective finishes.. These spaces are often open to the public, but the intention is for people to be impressed by the wealth and power of the occupants, an idea initially perfected in Ancient Rome. The impression of wealth and power created in these spaces is balanced against a need to demonstrate prudence and restraint - the corporations need to avoid creating an impression of extravagance or wastefulness. The emergence of the genre still life painting in the Netherlands during the 17th century provides useful source material for their representations of restrained prosperity as well as the moral content related to the virtues of modesty and the transience of material life and wealth. The illusory space in the church interiors of Saenredam and de Witte, with their sense of expansive space and light, are echoed in the real space of contemporary corporate foyers and provide a basis for considering the format, composition and modes of representation of constructed space.

An Attempt to Mirror the Painterly and Stillness in Autobiographical Visual Practice is a practice-as-research project consisting of a portfolio of videos, photographs, and the documentation of live performances, and a written thesis. The written part is intended to work as a supportive body of material for the portfolio – or ‘brackets’, as it will be referred in the text – revealing the creative process behind those artworks, and the central thinkers, writers and artists that are relevant to this study, as well as offering contextualisation through an exploration of the lineage of other artists and discussions within which my practice-as-research project resides. The writing is built around the idea of ‘attempts’, in a written interpretation of a method I have applied to many of the artworks. Another key word of the study, the aforementioned brackets, is inspired by Virginia Woolf’s use of brackets in her novel To The Lighthouse. In this thesis I will explain the way in which these brackets have inspired me in the creation of many of the artworks. This will also offer an insight into how I relate to the text from within a visual artistic practice generally, and how using the brackets as a concept has also become a tool for identifying relationships between the art pieces presented in the portfolio and the written thesis itself. The text also reveals the multifaceted role of the painterly within this study project. The painterly will be discussed as a poetic-atmospheric visual frame for the artworks, and will also be explored in terms of how it emerges if the movement or the moving image is slowed down, which in turn brings this painterly quality of the artwork into close parallel with the still life painting genre. Finally, I will demonstrate, through the exploration of three artists from the past – Gwen John, Helene Schjerfbeck, and Virginia Woolf – the complexity of the writings of art history, biographies, and autobiographies.

A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, for the Degree of Master of Arts. / This dissertation examines Paul Cezanne's still-lifes and proposes that the interpretation of meaning in these works depends upon the analysis of their stylistic elements. In Chapter 1 it is argued that the relationship between meaning and interpretation in the discipline of Art History is a complex one. An examination of the recent theoretical literature offers valuable insights into the ways in which art historians have assessed this relationship and the ramifications not only for the discipline, but for the Interpretation of Cezanne's still-lifes. The different ways in which scholars have interpreted Cezanne's oeuvre (particularly in relation to formalist approaches) are examined in the overview of the Cezanne literature in Chapter II. It is suggested that the existing body of interpretations in the literature forms an important part of a work's meaning and that therefore, the meaning of Cezanne's still-lifes should not be considered in an historical vacuum. furthermore, it is argued that the formalist interpretation of Cezanne's still-lifes warrants reevaluation, In Chapter III selected still-lifes are analyzed. The traditional art: historical dichotomy, reflected in the Cezanne literature, between 'form' and 'content', is challenged, The genre of still-life is contextualized in relation to Cezanne's other genres to substantiate the notion of a 'drama of style' evident in the still-lifes. It is argued that a stylistic approach to the still-lifes reveals both the importance of style in the interpretation of meaning in the still-lifes and the notion of artistic process evident in these works. / Andrew Chakane 2018

Also issued as the author's thesis (doctoral--Universität des Saarlandes, 2006). / Includes bibliographical references (p. 401-428).

Thesis (M.F.A.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 32-33). / iv, 33 leaves, bound col. ill. 29 cm

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 121-124). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 121-124). Also available on the Internet.