This research project is based on the pursuit of a new personal visual language that interprets my immediate world. My paintings and drawings are grounded in my immediate environment and evolve directly out of personal experience. Central to my investigation is the development of a new set of symbols and an examination of how they have evolved. Recording these experiences in an autobiographical and diaristic way is a fundamental part of my process. Journal sketching and independent drawing is critical to the evolution of the paintings, particularly their combination of pictograms and text. The work charts my navigation through space and also describes the characters that I come in contact with, communicate with or just \bump up against\". The characters I describe fall into three categories; people I know well people I hardly know and people I imagine and would like to meet. I have an unusual neurological condition which involves problems with balance weakness and tremor. These influence how I look and behave in a way that makes me appear \"different\" and makes my view of the world and my place in it unique. This element of being different results in me being involved in some situations which make me feel uncomfortable uneasy vulnerable and at times frustrated. My physical limitations also determine my painting style. This project is positioned within the field of artists who came to prominence in the 1980s representing a move away from Modernism's international language and a return to the developing of a personal language. Such artists include the Americans Jean-Michel Basquiat and Philip Guston as well as Australian artists Gareth Sansom and Gordon Bennett. These artists all sought and articulated a personal vocabulary of signs and symbols relating to contemporary popular urban culture and informed my own pursuit of a visual language with particular iconographies and modes of expression."
History
Publication status
Unpublished
Rights statement
Copyright 2005 the Author - The University is continuing to endeavour to trace the copyright owner(s) and in the meantime this item has been reproduced here in good faith. We would be pleased to hear from the copyright owner(s). Includes CD. Thesis (M.F.A.)--University of Tasmania, 2005. Includes bibliographical references