Belongings hybridizes photography, sculpture, and printmaking through new laser technology. The exhibited work communicates a lingering sense of homesickness and maps a path through the objects discovered in my father’s wallet shortly after his passing. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.F.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2017. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

The autobiographical nature of my work deals with the space between the innocence of childhood and the wisdom of adulthood. I explore the complexities of personal experience, old and new landscapes and the scar tissue of memory. The work deals with beginnings and departures, relationships and conflict of power and vulnerability in the quest to make sense of life. My work connects with moments of childhood that I try to retain as a touchstone for authentic experience. The images are derived from personal and familial experiences, moving through to the universal to tell the human tale, using the human body as a metaphor. The body becomes the subject matter for expressing ideas about our universal and personal concerns. I explore the gulf between the real and the unreal through examining themes such as identity, vulnerability, anxiety, fear, alienation, abandonment, loss, corruption of innocence, love and death within a contemporary urban framework. These emotions are played out against the backdrop of daily domesticity and reflect the physical reality of the world around us, often exposing the contrast between the orderly veneer of our daily lives and our emotional reality. My work methodology uses narrative found in books, films, fairy tales or fables to explore the conflicting emotions which structure human identity and interaction. I use the stories as a way of approaching ideas or emotions and exploiting the story as a focus of cultural knowledge. In the search for emotional truth I draw parallels between my art practice and the search for authenticity within the theatre. My work is an attempt to explain my own creative process in relation to the artists who have influenced me, my childhood, its rich tradition of storytelling and my passion for theatre and literature as well as a search for meaning in my own relationships and life's journey. This is conveyed through a series of paintings and works on paper.

Ouvrage issu de : Thèse (Ph.D) : histoire de l'art : University of the Witwatersrand : Johannesburg, 1991. / Bibliogr. p. 331-360. Index.

The autobiographical nature of my work deals with the space between the innocence of childhood and the wisdom of adulthood. I explore the complexities of personal experience, old and new landscapes and the scar tissue of memory. The work deals with beginnings and departures, relationships and conflict of power and vulnerability in the quest to make sense of life. My work connects with moments of childhood that I try to retain as a touchstone for authentic experience. The images are derived from personal and familial experiences, moving through to the universal to tell the human tale, using the human body as a metaphor. The body becomes the subject matter for expressing ideas about our universal and personal concerns. I explore the gulf between the real and the unreal through examining themes such as identity, vulnerability, anxiety, fear, alienation, abandonment, loss, corruption of innocence, love and death within a contemporary urban framework. These emotions are played out against the backdrop of daily domesticity and reflect the physical reality of the world around us, often exposing the contrast between the orderly veneer of our daily lives and our emotional reality. My work methodology uses narrative found in books, films, fairy tales or fables to explore the conflicting emotions which structure human identity and interaction. I use the stories as a way of approaching ideas or emotions and exploiting the story as a focus of cultural knowledge. In the search for emotional truth I draw parallels between my art practice and the search for authenticity within the theatre. My work is an attempt to explain my own creative process in relation to the artists who have influenced me, my childhood, its rich tradition of storytelling and my passion for theatre and literature as well as a search for meaning in my own relationships and life's journey. This is conveyed through a series of paintings and works on paper.

The research project uses still life as a means of exploring current events of violence and oppression. These events are represented through juxtaposing plastic toys with organic objects. The toys include a range of popular generic toys such as army men, cowboys and Indians and toy soldiers. The organic objects were selected for their relationship to the specific event being represented. The toys and organic objects were positioned to create interesting and logical compositions. Themes of the series include opposing objects and ideas pitched against each other such as plastic/organic, perpetrator/victim, violence/peacefulness and destruction/sustenance. Within each work the plastic toys take on the demeanor of the tyrant(s), whereas the organic objects adopt the role of the victim(s). The research project uses these themes to convey the message that violence is both a barbaric way of dealing with conflict and a senseless form of self-expression. I have used symbols and metaphors to build a visual language. For the language to be translated accurately a great deal of research has taken place into the appropriate still life objects for each work. Each work incorporates metaphors and or symbols for both the oppressor and victim within the event being represented. The studio outcome of this research project, Silent Bang, includes a series of highly detailed finished paintings of various scales. Silent Bang as a body of work is colourful and aims to be aesthetically pleasing in addition to conveying a powerful message that incites interpretation.

See file 01 / Art History, Visual Arts and Music / (M.A. (Visual Arts))

This study will argue that visual art and the making of images share much With other languages. If writing can be deoonstructed, visual Imagery can be deconfigured, for figuring an image is much like structuring a sentence. The process of deconfiguration however relies on repetition. DeconflguratiOn therefore denies any claim of a primary creator. It will be argued though that deconfiguratlon remains creative as it engages the imagination in a process of transference and through association. Moreover, deconfiguration shows how binary opposites are essential In the making of artworks. The repetitive process takes place when the artwork Is made and continues during the appreciation and/or interpretation of the artwork. For the interpretation to really deconfigure, it would mean that the image constituted by the artist has metaphorical, allegorical and even symbolical implications. The interpreter will thus always remain a partidpant in the creative process suggested by the artwork. / Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology / M.A. (Visual Arts)

The bull was a potent symbol of power, strength, and, to a lesser degree, fertility to the peoples of the ancient Near East from the twelfth century until 330 BCE. This symbolism was manifested in several iconographic motifs. These motifs reveal the bull as a manifestation of divine characteristics and as an expression of the power of man, and particularly the authority of the king. The use of these iconographic motifs was not consistent across the entire area of the ancient Near East; some differed in appearance and use in the different areas of the region, and many changed over time even in the same area. In all areas and during all periods the basic core symbolism stayed the same, and the bull was always held in a special respect. / Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern Studies / M.A. (Ancient Near Eastern Studies)

This dissertation investigates the question of transcendence and its relevance to my picture-making . process. The term 'transcendence' refers to any experience which surpasses the finite. In relation to the art-making process it refers to an opening up of the frame. Transcendence is not regarded as a fixed and unalterable state but as such that it encompasses paradox. The fragmentary nature of experience and" knowledge provides the point of departure for this investigation. The possibility of transcendence is partly explored through the concept of symbolic orders. I am using the term 'symbolic orders' to refer to any frameworks which shape human experience in general and the creative process specifically. Upon exploring the concept of transcendence as concerns the work of a number of artists and insofar as it has informed my own pictures it appears that there is a creative system pertaining to the artwork which is transcendent. / Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology / M.A. (Fine Arts)

This thesis in two volumes is a study of the paintings of David ill Ryckaert (1612- 1661 ). Ryckaert grew up in a family of artists, and painted within a close community of fellow artists. According to several twentieth-century critics, Ryckaert was no more than a minor imitator of other Flemish painters. Underlying such relegation of Ryckaert is an uncritical and distinctly Modernist glorification of originality, or merely novelty. The chief argument of this thesis is that a careful reconstruction of the socio-cultural circumstances ofRyckaert's work calls into question the destructive employment of originality as a criterion of artistic greatness. Much of the vocabulary of Flemish art of the time was established. Artists thus proved their excellence both to fellow painters and a public fully conversant with the artistic traditions of subject and style, if such pictorial conventions were notably refmed or treated with a remarkable grace. Embracing the criteria of personal style and the beauty of the work, this environment is clearly averse to the blank veneration of new or original art. I argue that the term originality is itself dangerous therefore and that to neglect Ryckaert's work as that of a minor imitator is invalid and unhelpful. A careful examination of Ryckaert's known oeuvre reveals that his work is distinguished by a fine modelling, harmonious composition and a warm palette with colourful highlights. Although he relied on an established iconographic repertory, he maintained creative variation, thereby ensuring a steady demand. Ryckaert's imitation of other artists' work requires us to adjust twentieth-century criteria which tend to be pejorative of those who borrow from fellow artists. In fact Ryckaert could be said to have refmed his individuality as a painter through the testing creative encounter with and imitation of other artists. / Art / D.Litt. et Phil. (History of Art)