Becoming animal: exploring iconic and indexical representation

Abstract

The presentation of my thesis comprises the Studio Practice component (66%) which takes the form of an exhibition of paintings on canvas to be held at the ANU School of Art Gallery in March 2013, together with a film recording of my practice, a research blog (http://laomedia.com/blog), this Exegesis which documents the nature and development of the practice-led research undertaken during the course of the study, plus the Dissertation component (33%). The Studio Practice component has been based on image-creation experiments at a local farm that bring recently deceased animal bodies into contact with canvas to decompose. I further interrogate the nature of representation at the level of subject within the painting studio when I negotiate with the image produced by the dead animal subject through painting process. My Exegesis combines descriptions of and reflections on my practical processes, with an exploration of the contextual concerns of the research project in respect to contemporary art and, more broadly, human-animal studies. The Dissertation undertakes an analysis of the representation of animals in Western Arnhem Land painting in rock shelters and on paper and bark for sale at Injalak Arts and Crafts, Kunbarlanja. European Natural History painting and anatomical illustration inform my consideration of the X-ray style of representation. In the introductory part of the Dissertation I provide an impression of socio-cultural life in Kunbarlanja through a self-reflexive cross-cultural and cross-species story based on a 10-day archaeological field trip in 2009 and a three- month field stay in the Kunbarlanja community in 2010. While informed by anthropological texts specialising in the culture particular to Kunwinjku speaking Aboriginal Australians, this part of my Dissertation engages with revelatory mythopoeic experiences crucial to an understanding of painting process among Western Arnhem Land artists past and present.