Painting, central to Western art for many centuries, became problematised to an unprecedented degree in the 1960's. From the early 1970's, many Western artists abandoned its forms and traditions and embraced alternative forms. However, painting returned, and it remains the medium of choice for many artists. Painting in the post-modern era of art differs from that of the modernist era. The reconsideration of painting was apparent internationally and throughout Australia. / In South Australia, painting began to change significantly around 1970, and this change had some unique local characteristics. In this thesis, I describe the change in painting in South Australia and identify the main themes and innovations that characterised it by examining the work of important painters working in South Australia in the period c1970 to 2003. While South Australian art has been strongly influenced by Australian and Western artisitic trends, these trends have manifested themselves locally in characteristic ways - shaped, for example, by local and national politics, a strong feminist movement, the role of government-funded exhibition spaces, and an active art press, as well as prominent local practitioners. / This thesis takes the form of an overview rather than an in-depth analysis of all painting in South Australia in this period. It identifies some of the main artists and many of the main themes but is not intended as an exhaustive description, which would be beyond the scope of such a thesis. The intention is to provide a broad historical picture that identifies the forms, styles and characteristics of the painting that developed and the context in which it developed in this important three-decade period. This historical picture will serve as a framework for further analysis of specific art and artists, and it provides a basis for the assessment of painting at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The thesis builds on and draws into the historical picture some existing literature on South Australian painting. / South Australia is chosen for this study partly because of its unique characteristics and partly because there are some significant South Australian artists whose work is under-acknowledged. In Australian art history, the emphasis is traditionally on developments in Sydney and Melbourne. This thesis shows that South Australian painting since the 1970s has been important and is worthy of consideration. / Chapter 1 briefly outlines the nature of South Australian modernism at the end of the 1960s. Chapter 2 details the revolution in South Australian painting of the 1970s: the changed political, educational and institutional environment for art, the rejection of painting in favour of alternative forms, and the politicisation of painting's subject matter. Chapters 3, 4 and 5 outline the impetus for the return to painting in South Australia, the development of post-modern painting in the 1980s and 1990s, and the principal concerns and attributes of the new painting. Chapter 6 briefly looks at South Australian Aboriginal painting, whose nature differed from that of the Northern Territory, but which has had a nationally significant impact. Chapter 7 examines a sample of the work of emerging painters around 2000, and the context in which they work, so as to identify the nature painting at the beginning of the twenty-first century. / Finally, the discussion of South Australian painting in this thesis informs the consideration of painting as an art form generally. It shows that painting today is very different from that of the modernist era, but that it retains significant power and appeal. / Thesis (MVisualArts)--University of South Australia, 2004.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/267632 |
| Creators | Reid, Christopher S. T. |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | copyright under review |
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