Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Art Gallery of New South Wales'

This study examines the art practices and management of the National Art Galleries of Australia and New Zealand in the period between the wars, 1918-1939.It does so in part to account for the pervading conservatism and narrow corridors of aesthetic acceptability evident in their acquisitions and in many of their dealings. It aims to explore the role of Britishness, through an examination of the influence of the London Royal Academy of Art, within theses emerging official art institutions. This study argues that the dominant artistic ideology illustrated in these National Gallery collections was determined by a social elite, which was, at its heart, British. Its collective taste was predicated on models established in Great Britain and on traditions and on connoisseurship. This visual instruction in the British ideal of culture, as seen through the Academy, was regarded as a worthy aspiration, one that was at once both highly nationalistic and also a tool of Empire unity. This ideal was nationalistic in the sense that it marked the desire of these Boards to claim for the nation membership of the world's civil society, whilst also acknowleging that the vehicle to do so was through an enhanced alliance with British art and culture. The ramifications of an Empire-first aesthetic model were tremendous. The model severely constrained taste in domestic art, limited the participation of indigenous peoples and shaped the reception of modernism.
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This study examines the art practices and management of the National Art Galleries of Australia and New Zealand in the period between the wars, 1918-1939.It does so in part to account for the pervading conservatism and narrow corridors of aesthetic acceptability evident in their acquisitions and in many of their dealings. It aims to explore the role of Britishness, through an examination of the influence of the London Royal Academy of Art, within theses emerging official art institutions. This study argues that the dominant artistic ideology illustrated in these National Gallery collections was determined by a social elite, which was, at its heart, British. Its collective taste was predicated on models established in Great Britain and on traditions and on connoisseurship. This visual instruction in the British ideal of culture, as seen through the Academy, was regarded as a worthy aspiration, one that was at once both highly nationalistic and also a tool of Empire unity. This ideal was nationalistic in the sense that it marked the desire of these Boards to claim for the nation membership of the world's civil society, whilst also acknowleging that the vehicle to do so was through an enhanced alliance with British art and culture. The ramifications of an Empire-first aesthetic model were tremendous. The model severely constrained taste in domestic art, limited the participation of indigenous peoples and shaped the reception of modernism.

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Western Sydney, 2003.
"A thesis presented to the University of Western Sydney in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy" Includes bibliography.

This thesis explores the history of art education in Sydney from 1850 to 1915. This was a foundational period for the establishment of both art and education in Sydney. It was a time during which structures of schooling first emerged, technical instruction became a priority and a government supported art gallery was established. I draw on a wide range of English and Australian sources to consider what comprised art education in Sydney during this foundational period. It is a topic that has received little scholarly attention, but is important for allowing those currently involved in art education an understanding of the foundations on which our current system was built. This thesis focuses on four key research questions. The first, ‘why teach art?’ is examined through analysis of discourse surrounding art education in this period. Three major motivations that informed the provision of art education in Sydney are identified: the importance of art for industry, a desire to teach taste and the broader educational benefit of art instruction for improving hand-eye coordination. ‘Where was art taught?’ is a second major focus. The art instruction offered through schools, technical colleges, exhibitions and galleries is examined in order to map the landscape of art education in Sydney. This thesis offers a novel contribution through the creation of a chronology, tracing the development of art instruction across a range of educational institutions. Thirdly, ‘who taught art?’ is considered through a series of professional biographies, featuring a range of individuals involved in the provision of art education. These case studies show the way one person could influence instruction across a range of institutions. Analysis of periodicals, personal papers, educational magazines, government records and school archives is undertaken to gain a deeper understanding of the contribution of these individuals. Finally, the question of ‘how art was taught’ is considered through close analysis of the tools used in teaching. Plaster casts and copybooks are examined, both for their pedagogic value and as artistic objects in themselves and how they were used to disseminate visual culture in Sydney.

In the years between 1960 and 1975 in NSW there emerged a loosely connected network of women interested in modern or creative embroidery. The Embroiderers' Guild of NSW served as a focus for many of these women, providing opportunities for them to exhibit their work, and to engage in embroidery education as teachers or as learners. Others worked independently, exhibited in commercial galleries and endeavoured to establish reputations as professional artists. Some of these women were trained artists and wanted embroidery to be seen as 'art'; others were enthusiastic amateurs, engaged in embroidery as a form of 'serious leisure'. They played a significant role in the development of creative embroidery and textile art in NSW and yet, for the most part, their story is absent from the narratives of Australian art and craft history. These women were involved in a network of interactions which displayed many of the characteristics of more organised art worlds, as posite d by sociologist Howard Becker. They produced work according to shared conventions, they established co-operative links with each other and with other organisations, they organised educational opportunities to encourage others to take up creative embroidery and they mounted exhibitions to facilitate engagement with a public audience. Although their absence from the literature suggests that they operated in isolation, my research indicates that there were many points of contact between the embroidery world, the broader craft world and the fine art community in NSW. This thesis examines the context in which creative embroiderers worked, discusses the careers of key individuals working at this time, explores the interactions between them, and evaluates the influence that they had on later practice in embroidery and textiles in NSW.

Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Division of Society, Culture, Media & Philosophy, Department of Anthropology, 2006.
Bibliography: p. 257-276.
Introduction: coming to Wilcannia -- Wilcannia: plenty of Aborigines, but no culture -- Who you is? -- Cultural values: ambivalences and ambiguities -- Praise, success and opportunity -- "Art an' culture: the two main things, right?" -- Big Murray Butcher: "We still doin' it" -- Granny Moisey's baby: the art of Badger Bates -- Epilogue.
Dominant society discourses and images have long depicted the Aboriginal people of the town of Wilcannia in far Western New South Wales as having no 'culture'. In asking what this means and how this situation might have come about, the thesis seeks to respond through an ethnographic exploration of these discourses and images. The work explores problematic and polemic dominant society assumptions regarding 'culture' and 'Aboriginal culture', their synonyms and their effects. The work offers Aboriginal counter-discourses to the claim of most white locals and dominant culture that the Aboriginal people of Wilcannia have no culture. In so doing the work presents reflexive notions about 'culture' as verbalised and practiced, as well as providing an ethnography of how culture is more tacitly lived. -- Broadly, the thesis looks at what it is to be Aboriginal in Wilcannia from both white and black perspectives. The overarching concern of this thesis is a desire to unpack what it means to be black in Wilcannia. The thesis is primarily about the competing values and points of view within and between cultures, the ways in which Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people tacitly and reflexively express and interpret difference, and the ambivalence and ambiguity that come to bear in these interactions and experiences. This thesis demonstrates how ideas and actions pertaining to 'race' and 'culture' operate in tandem through an exploration of values and practices relating to 'work', 'productivity', 'success', 'opportunity' and the domain of 'art'. These themes are used as vehicles to understanding the 'on the ground' effects and affects of cultural perceptions and difference. They serve also to demonstrate the ambiguity and ambivalence that is experienced as well as being brought to bear upon relationships which implicitly and explicitly are concerned with, and concern themselves with difference.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
xii, 276 p. ill

This exegesis forms part of a cycle in the author's ongoing journey into the space of one tree, Eucalyptus gummifera. Many previously unchartered zones of experience give rise to experiences which are perceived slowly, with an open mind, in order to communicate an assemblage of experiences, objects and data which have come together to represent a reading of elements of the landscape of the Sydney Basin, one place where Eucalyptus gummifera grows. Each element has a niche within a specific grid of interaction that takes place in this lived environment. The work surveys fields of physical objects and relationships, inspiring new readings and translations of the landscape of one's own discoveries. Here the world acquires perspective and significance which enables fresh understandings and the deeper accquisition of knowledge. Thus the interactions in this sequence of the author's journeys into the space of one tree reveal further elements of the spatial landscape of Eucalyptus gummifera.

This paper grows out of my ongoing practice of photographing the Darling River in western NSW. My interest in imaging the landscape and representing the contemporary divisions within it led me to investigate previous colonial conflicts, which occurred as white explorers in the 1830’s and squatters in the 1850’s took over the Aboriginal tribal lands on the Darling. In this paper I investigate the images created by explorers, artists and photographers, which were the beginnings of a Eurocentric vision for this land. These images were created in the context of a colonial history which forms the ideological backdrop to historical events and representations of this land. This research has involved me in an investigation across three different disciplines; Australian history, Australian visual art, and environmental aspects of human interactions with the land. The postcolonial histories which inform my work are themselves re-evaluations of earlier histories. This recent history has revealed, amid the images of European ‘settlement’ and ‘progress’, views of frontier violence and Aboriginal resistance to colonisation that were excluded from earlier histories. The fan-like shape of the Darling River, which for millennia has bought water to this dry land, is the motif that focuses my investigation. I discuss the relatively recent degradation of the river, which is the focus of contemporary conflicts between graziers, Aboriginal people, environmentalists and irrigators. Because large-scale irrigation now has the capacity to divert the flows of entire rivers for the irrigation of cash crops, the insecurities of earlier generations over the ‘unpredictable’ floods and their perception of lack of control over water - has been entirely reversed. ‘Control’ of water is now held by irrigators and the river down stream from the pumps is kept at a constant low, becoming a chain of stagnant waterholes during summer. Like many rivers in industrialised countries, the Darling no longer flows to its ocean. The physical characteristics of rangeland grazing are an important background to my paper. Although the introduction of sheep and cattle has altered and degraded this landscape, unlike ploughed country to the east this land retains much of its native vegetation and an Aboriginal history embedded across its surface. This paper is an investigation of the changing representations of the Australian landscape, and central to my paper (and a result of growing up in this area) is my recognition, at an early age, of cultural difference in the context of this landscape. I became aware of contradictions in how Aboriginal people were treated by the ‘white’ community and I glimpsed the distinct cultural viewpoints held by Aboriginal people. A connection to country continues to be expressed in art produced by Aboriginal people in the Wilcannia area, including work by Badger Bates and Waddy Harris. The Wilcannia Mob, a schoolboy rap-group received national press coverage, winning a Deadly Award in 2002 for their acclaimed song ‘Down River’. While a discussion of these artworks is not part of the discussion of my paper, it is a context for my research. In broad terms this paper is an investigation of different worldviews, different views of land and landscape by graziers, Aboriginal people, environmentalists and irrigators. These views carry with them different cultural understandings and different representations of the land - different and sometimes opposing views of its past and its future. It seems in 2005 that, just as artists, historians, filmmakers, etc. are beginning to come to terms with Australian colonial history, as the El Nino seasons and the importance of ‘environmental flows’ in the Murray Darling Basin are increasingly understood, that technological changes and the global effects of population densities are creating other changes (greenhouse gasses, ozone depletion, climate changes) that once again appear to be unpredictable and beyond our control. While this environmental discussion is outside the scope of the current paper it is a context for my investigation of this landscape.

Master of Visual Arts
This paper grows out of my ongoing practice of photographing the Darling River in western NSW. My interest in imaging the landscape and representing the contemporary divisions within it led me to investigate previous colonial conflicts, which occurred as white explorers in the 1830’s and squatters in the 1850’s took over the Aboriginal tribal lands on the Darling. In this paper I investigate the images created by explorers, artists and photographers, which were the beginnings of a Eurocentric vision for this land. These images were created in the context of a colonial history which forms the ideological backdrop to historical events and representations of this land. This research has involved me in an investigation across three different disciplines; Australian history, Australian visual art, and environmental aspects of human interactions with the land. The postcolonial histories which inform my work are themselves re-evaluations of earlier histories. This recent history has revealed, amid the images of European ‘settlement’ and ‘progress’, views of frontier violence and Aboriginal resistance to colonisation that were excluded from earlier histories. The fan-like shape of the Darling River, which for millennia has bought water to this dry land, is the motif that focuses my investigation. I discuss the relatively recent degradation of the river, which is the focus of contemporary conflicts between graziers, Aboriginal people, environmentalists and irrigators. Because large-scale irrigation now has the capacity to divert the flows of entire rivers for the irrigation of cash crops, the insecurities of earlier generations over the ‘unpredictable’ floods and their perception of lack of control over water - has been entirely reversed. ‘Control’ of water is now held by irrigators and the river down stream from the pumps is kept at a constant low, becoming a chain of stagnant waterholes during summer. Like many rivers in industrialised countries, the Darling no longer flows to its ocean. The physical characteristics of rangeland grazing are an important background to my paper. Although the introduction of sheep and cattle has altered and degraded this landscape, unlike ploughed country to the east this land retains much of its native vegetation and an Aboriginal history embedded across its surface. This paper is an investigation of the changing representations of the Australian landscape, and central to my paper (and a result of growing up in this area) is my recognition, at an early age, of cultural difference in the context of this landscape. I became aware of contradictions in how Aboriginal people were treated by the ‘white’ community and I glimpsed the distinct cultural viewpoints held by Aboriginal people. A connection to country continues to be expressed in art produced by Aboriginal people in the Wilcannia area, including work by Badger Bates and Waddy Harris. The Wilcannia Mob, a schoolboy rap-group received national press coverage, winning a Deadly Award in 2002 for their acclaimed song ‘Down River’. While a discussion of these artworks is not part of the discussion of my paper, it is a context for my research. In broad terms this paper is an investigation of different worldviews, different views of land and landscape by graziers, Aboriginal people, environmentalists and irrigators. These views carry with them different cultural understandings and different representations of the land - different and sometimes opposing views of its past and its future. It seems in 2005 that, just as artists, historians, filmmakers, etc. are beginning to come to terms with Australian colonial history, as the El Nino seasons and the importance of ‘environmental flows’ in the Murray Darling Basin are increasingly understood, that technological changes and the global effects of population densities are creating other changes (greenhouse gasses, ozone depletion, climate changes) that once again appear to be unpredictable and beyond our control. While this environmental discussion is outside the scope of the current paper it is a context for my investigation of this landscape.

This research focuses on agencification and quangocratisation (AQ) through a comparison of the experiences of South Korea and the UK. Although a number of studies of AQ have been produced recently, these reforms remain inadequately understood. Since AQ involves the structural disaggregation of administrative units from existing departments, executive agencies and quangos have distinct characteristics which are quite different from ordinary core departments. There are a number of factors which influence these changes; and this thesis explores nine existing theories which are available to explain these phenomena. Case studies are presented of Tate Modern in the UK and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), which are carefully analysed to examine the validity of those nine arguments. Although cultural agencies, which show some unique features, have become increasingly an essential part of the national economy, they have scarcely been researched from the viewpoint of public policy. This thesis endeavours to explore distinctive characteristics of this policy area; and moreover, it examines the diverse variables which have an impact on policy formation and its results through the process of comparison of arguments. The major tasks of this thesis are to investigate the applicability of the nine arguments and to weigh their merits. As a corollary of this comprehensiveness, it examines the whole public sectors of both countries, in order to show the broader picture and to understand the processes of changes and their backgrounds. More profoundly, similarities and differences between both countries are compared from both macro and micro perspectives. At the same time, the results of AQ are analysed through the comparison of outputs or outcomes before and after these changes, with a view to exploring whether their rationales are appropriate. Furthermore, it also examines the institutional constraints which influence not only the change of agencies but also their performances. Besides which, it seeks to find strategies for overcoming these constraints. This thesis adopts systematic and comprehensive approaches regarding basic concepts and data. It draws on theories of comparative research, the scope of the public sector, the classification and analysis of agencies and quangos, and theories underlying the detailed components of each argument and epistemological assumptions. Therefore, it suggests various aspects which enable us to broaden our understanding of the changes within the public sector; and to generate practical understanding to inform real world reform.

Despite the migration of some artists of Arabic origin to Australia since 1947, experimental Australian artists of Arabic origin only began to gain attention for their work from 1975 onwards. The works of those artists who have a migrant background, distinguished, on one hand, by the continuous link between themselves and their cultural heritage and the political and human conditions of their homelands, and on the other hand, being inspired by the social, cultural and political issues of Australian life, which reflect the type and nature of relationships between the artists and their host society. It is important to note the commonalities in efforts of artists to realize their arts with individual imprints, in an attempt to create an aesthetic contribution that confirms their own particularity. In their cultural trends, originating from the values and concerns of their social existence; exploring new artistic values and symbols, and working through different artistic trends and techniques, in ways that reflect their visions about art as a duty, and represent a cultural, aesthetic and moral responsibility, toward the societies of their homelands and their adopted country. At present, this art activity is recognized as having made a vital contribution to Australian cultural life, incorporating serious artistic and cultural concerns, represented by a group of exhibitions. Thus, this study is in the frame of these cultural and artistic efforts, dating to the beginning of this activity in Australia, studying the educational, political, social conditions, which help in the development of this art. It focuses on exposing the artistic elements and their aesthetic and cultural values, the symbols and their relegations, which appear in the works of the participant artists in the frame of the study.

In 1815 the Blue Mountains were first identified as a unique landscape when Governor Macquarie took a tour over them and located the nineteenth century principles of the Sublime and Picturesque within its' landscape. Until this time the Blue Mountains were considered to be a hostile impenetrable barrier to the West. This paper examines some of the ways the Blue Mountains has been represented in the past, and has been identified as a tourist destination through interpretations imposed on the landscape by the tourist industry since that time. The areas covered deal with the heritage of British Colonialism as a way of forming opinions about the Australian landscape. Then, the theories of the Picturesque and Sublime are examined when applied to the Blue Mountains landscape. The final chapters in this paper deal with contemporary issues that have shaped the way the tourist industry is encouraged to encounter the Blue Mountains landscape

The study focuses on the types of cultural practice that are, in the main, generated by the young people themselves (hereafter referred to as youth generated cultures) who fall within the age group of 14-20 yrs of age. The research was undertaken in the Western Sydney region, which is the largest expanding population in Australia, and is regularly defined as a socio-economically disadvantaged region, therefore, an important factor within this study is the issue of class determinants. The paper explores the youth generated cultural practice of graffiti, skateboarding, street machining, and street dancing. These creative practices challenge traditional notions of culture and the arts, however the young people also employ strategies of an aesthetic nature in their creative process. Youth generated cultures are actively engaged in criticism through the use of instrumentalist aesthetics such as Monroe Beardsley describes. The thesis proposes that youth generated cultures have, in a united and structured manner, provided for themselves a framework of economic and pedagogical support that has afforded them a place within the cultural mainstream without the recognition or approval of mainstream cultural establishments. It is argued that these particular youth generated cultures are not rebellious or destructive subcultures, that they are creative in nature and have been established primarily to produce and display their creative cultures. Youth agency is essential to the character of these youth generated cultures and it is this agency that is under challenge from the cultural hegemony. The young people involved in youth generated cultures demand that any account of their cultural practice must also accept the agency of youth as fundamental to their cultural status.

The proximate causes of many of the environmental issues facing residents of the Western Division are well known. Inappropriate land use practices (intensity, duration and timing of grazing), total grazing pressure, poor knowledge of ecosystem fragility and seasonal variation are some of the issues that contribute to an actual or perceived degradation of the landscape. Many of the current practices are seemingly at odds with the attitudes and values of the wider community and also those of the pastoralists who carry out these practices. This thesis seeks to explain this apparent contradiction. The thesis is composed of four elements. The first element reviews historical (mostly European) thinking about nature and the relationship between nature and society and traces how this thinking has changed through time. The second element is a review of the history of land settlement and land use in the division, and shows how the development of the division followed contemporary societal attitudes and values. The third element is an examination of the portrayal of landscape in a western visual art tradition and how this has the potential to be used to reflect contemporary social attitudes and values. The fourth element involves the use of three projects that used art and text as a basis for investigating the attitudes and values of people in the Western Division. The findings of the research indicate that visual landscape has the potential to become an aid in the identification of community attitudes and values about the landscape in which they live. Further, this technique allows for the emergence of other factors such as individual identity and its accommodation within the behavioural framework. In accommodating such factors as individual identity, individual and social attitudes and values toward the environment in any discussion of behaviour in relation to the landscape and its use, a better understanding of the motives underlying behaviour will be gained. In so doing better decisions can be made by both pastoralists and land administrators. Further research is needed to verify the usefulness of these findings in both opening up a positive dialogue with landholders and administrators and in aligning pastoralists’ behaviour towards a more sustainable land use ethic.
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The proximate causes of many of the environmental issues facing residents of the Western Division are well known. Inappropriate land use practices (intensity, duration and timing of grazing), total grazing pressure, poor knowledge of ecosystem fragility and seasonal variation are some of the issues that contribute to an actual or perceived degradation of the landscape. Many of the current practices are seemingly at odds with the attitudes and values of the wider community and also those of the pastoralists who carry out these practices. This thesis seeks to explain this apparent contradiction. The thesis is composed of four elements. The first element reviews historical (mostly European) thinking about nature and the relationship between nature and society and traces how this thinking has changed through time. The second element is a review of the history of land settlement and land use in the division, and shows how the development of the division followed contemporary societal attitudes and values. The third element is an examination of the portrayal of landscape in a western visual art tradition and how this has the potential to be used to reflect contemporary social attitudes and values. The fourth element involves the use of three projects that used art and text as a basis for investigating the attitudes and values of people in the Western Division. The findings of the research indicate that visual landscape has the potential to become an aid in the identification of community attitudes and values about the landscape in which they live. Further, this technique allows for the emergence of other factors such as individual identity and its accommodation within the behavioural framework. In accommodating such factors as individual identity, individual and social attitudes and values toward the environment in any discussion of behaviour in relation to the landscape and its use, a better understanding of the motives underlying behaviour will be gained. In so doing better decisions can be made by both pastoralists and land administrators. Further research is needed to verify the usefulness of these findings in both opening up a positive dialogue with landholders and administrators and in aligning pastoralists’ behaviour towards a more sustainable land use ethic.

The momentous signing of the Treaty of Kanagawa in 1854 marked the turning point to end Japan’s long seclusion from the West. Its subsequent ‘opening’ unveiled the refreshingly different aesthetic canon of Japanese art which was enthusiastically hailed by nineteenth century Western artists and designers. As a much sought after commodity, Japanese art was collected in unprecedented quantities throughout Europe, the British Empire and the United States. The mania for things Japanese also reached the far-flung colonies in Australia and New Zealand. This phenomenon, referred to in the English-speaking world as ‘Mikado Mania’ or the ‘Cult of Japan’, coincided with the establishment of public museums, the proliferation of international exhibitions and ease of global travel. These innovations fostered and facilitated the formation of Japanese art collections internationally. A survey of Australian and New Zealand collections and a particular examination of the Art Gallery of South Australia’s collection formed between the years 1904-1940 reveal the circumstances and personalities that shaped the nature and content of the collections. It is argued in this thesis that while nascent colonial public museums and private collectors such as those in South Australia were guided by British tastes, the genesis of which predated the nineteenth century ‘opening’ of Japan, the collecting of Japanese art in nineteenth-century Australia and New Zealand served as a signifier of international discourse and modernity. For Japan, its art became a tool to fend off foreign hegemony. Driven by the slogan bunmei kaika ‘civilisation and enlightenment’, Japan throughout the Meiji era (1868-1912) exploited the mania for its art in order to achieve status and recognition as a world power. It will be further argued that the spirit of bunmei kaika also encapsulated the cultural aspirations of the fledgling colonies in Australia and New Zealand which, by the late nineteenth century, were endeavouring to articulate their own ‘civilisation and enlightenment’ within the British Empire. Through their efforts to advance onto the world stage, the Australian colonies played a significant, though unrecognised role in Japan’s experimentation and investment in its self-promotion as a civilised country. The cause and effect of measures undertaken by the Japanese government to achieve bunmei kaika through the applied arts of ceramics, metalware, ivories and lacquer can be directly demonstrated through the very objects collected in South Australia and the other colonies. A study of their intrinsic qualities and provenance provides tangible evidence of Japan’s strategic efforts to advance its national identity through art. It also serves to shed light on the curatorial expertise and connoisseurship being exercised at the time by colonial museums and collectors. Japanese objects acquired during the formative period of Australian and New Zealand museums have long been ignored or dismissed as hybridised and inauthentic. Recently their technological ingenuity and cross-cultural aesthetic have been more generously acknowledged. They are the beacons of Japan’s quest for ‘civilisation and enlightenment’.
Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of History & Politics, 2012

This exegesis forms part of a cycle in the author's ongoing journey into the space of one tree, Eucalyptus gummifera. Many previously unchartered zones of experience give rise to experiences which are perceived slowly, with an open mind, in order to communicate an assemblage of experiences, objects and data which have come together to represent a reading of elements of the landscape of the Sydney Basin, one place where Eucalyptus gummifera grows. Each element has a niche within a specific grid of interaction that takes place in this lived environment. The work surveys fields of physical objects and relationships, inspiring new readings and translations of the landscape of one's own discoveries. Here the world acquires perspective and significance which enables fresh understandings and the deeper accquisition of knowledge. Thus the interactions in this sequence of the author's journeys into the space of one tree reveal further elements of the spatial landscape of Eucalyptus gummifera.
Master of Arts (Hons)(Contemporary Arts)

The Upper Nepean River catchment in the Sydney Basin has a rich repertoire of visual imagery - rock-art, and a variety of other types of marks on stone. This thesis examines the diversity and spatial distribution across the land of these rock markings and change over time. The theoretical focus is on materiality, practice and performance. In previous research conducted in the Sydney Basin, rock-art located in shelters has been considered, at least implicitly, to be functionally equivalent across both space and time. The research in this thesis, by comparison, has been developed to explore both synchronic and diachronic variability in sheltered rock-art and to give consideration to the occupational and contextual diversity this represents. The rock-art corpus is analysed in accordance with its material diversity in order to explore the qualitatively different forms of behavioural expression that this variation may embody. A fundamental distinction is made between graphically structured, imposed form on the one hand, and gestural marks on the other. The material relationship between the rock-art and the rock on and within which it is set, is also examined. The different data sets are explored dialectically and in accordance with their geographic and environmental location in order to gain an appreciation of the experience and engagement between Aboriginal people and the land in this part of the Sydney Basin. The analysis employs both quantitative and explicitly narrative approaches to examine the spatial and temporal dimensions of occupation. While this research has been conducted without the support of any direct dating or archaeological context, the methodology has, nevertheless allowed for the discrimination of temporal diversity in spatial patterns, and concomitantly, the manner in which the land has been occupied and created as landscape, over time. In order to achieve this, it has been crucial to analyse the rock markings not only in respect of their behaviour correlates, but also their material locations within geographic, environmental and micro-topographic space. The analysis of the Upper Nepean rock-art reveals a pattern of diachronic change in which the marking of the land with imagery became increasingly diverse in a number of formal and material ways, and geographically and environmentally common and widespread. The results suggests that regional bodies of rock-art are likely to have been produced in accordance with a diversity of motivations and functional purposes and that significant temporal change in the impetus to mark the land, and the choice of how and where to do so, can occur over relatively short time frames. It is argued that the practice of marking the land in the Upper Nepean was a dynamic dialectic, both constitutive and transformative, of being and place. Over time, people drew the land into an object world which became, with ever increasing inscription and embellishment, a marked and painted landscape, both productive of and reflecting, a complex history.

Despite extensive academic focus on Indigenous Australian art, sustained engagement, particularly in the discipline of anthropology, has largely focused on artists and artworks from the central, northern and western regions of Australia. Academic works examining art-making in the south east of Australia, particularly New South Wales (NSW), are relatively few, despite news articles, exhibition catalogues and monographs penned by artists and curators providing evidence of vibrant communities of Aboriginal artists and solo practitioners working across NSW. In light of this, this thesis addresses the relative academic silence around Aboriginal art-making in NSW. It asks, broadly, what kind of art is being made in NSW and why? Drawing on fieldwork undertaken across NSW – including interviews with 65 artists, curators, arts workers and others – and on primary analysis of several data sets – including material from the Australian Art Sales Digest and Parliament of NSW Aboriginal Art Prize catalogues – this thesis seeks to pay attention to Aboriginal artists working across NSW in order to document the work they make, the technical, creative and social processes through which they create art, their experiences of the art-world, particularly the art market, and their motivations for making. As a result of this attention, this thesis focuses on various themes, issues and topics. The history of intellectual and commercial engagement with Aboriginal art produced in NSW since British colonisation is canvassed in order to contextualise and make sense of the concerns and creative interests of research participants. Participant use of art to represent, affirm and constitute diverse personal, cultural and professional identities is explored and it is demonstrated that identity-focused works reveal that Aboriginality is conceptualised, by artists, in overwhelmingly non-essentialist ways, although the nature of this non-essentialism is varied. Diverse art practices undertaken by Aboriginal artists in NSW are described, including detailed analysis of two visual forms (south eastern designs and dots) and two styles or genres (urban art and contemporary art) which are commonly created, or are felt to be significant, by participants. These forms/genres are positioned by artists and others as traditional and non-traditional to NSW, sometimes simultaneously. Analysis of engagement with these forms reveals the ways participants conceive of culture especially as it pertains to tradition, authenticity, change and continuity. Finally, consideration of the sale of art in various art market spheres illustrates that selling work is significant for artists, and confers meaning upon artworks offered for sale.

In this dissertation, I provide three studies of artistic practice in the era of the Great Depression. In each chapter, I write about a different set of artists working in the southeastern United States: I write about Walker Evans and the artistic and literary community located in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana (1926-1941); Edwin and Elise Harleston and their portrait studio in Charleston, South Carolina (1922-1931); and Bill Traylor and the artists who founded the New South Gallery and Art School in Montgomery, Alabama (1939-1940). Drawing from public and private archival collections, I consider how these artists made works that represented the South while they also made connections with artists and visual communities elsewhere; these connections placed them in dialogue with artists of the Harlem Renaissance, of American Regionalism, and of the Mexican Mural Movement. Although the artists in each chapter were from different Southern cities, they shared similar interests in the importance of developing and participating in artistic community. I situate each study in this dissertation in relation to a type of artistic practice. These types of artistic practice—documentary, portraiture, and exhibition—served as loci for Southern artists’ ideas about time and place. Southern studies have been haunted by the idea that the South always looks backward, to the past. In these three studies, I consider how Southern artists and their contemporaries in other places took different approaches to referencing the past and imagining a future for the South. The works made by these Southern artists—which are linked by their complicated relationships to race, history, and place—are largely absent from histories of American and 20th century art. Their absence tells us much about the stakes behind history writing. By bringing these studies into dialogue with other, existing, art historical contexts and communities, I trace how historical absence is constructed and why such absences are important to consider. The works in this dissertation are also linked by their difference from a kind of Modernism; in their multiple and discrepant modernisms, the artists in this dissertation made work which was both modern and not-modern, which looked backward while pushing forward.
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