[Documentation of work for Master of Fine Arts course]

The work I produce during the M.F.A. course will be centred on image making as a process of communication. Exploring visual images as messages mediated by social conventions of expectation and language. Examining how visual images work to redefine the horizon of possibilities allowed the viewer by culture. This investigation will require theoretical research on questions of how society determines an individual's consciousness and the capacity of a mind so formed to intervene and alter the determining cultures world view. I define this field of research as materialism, more specifically the cultural implications of Historical Materialism. I.propose to base my theoretical papers on Marxist thought as it has been developed through 20th century Western thinkers, using these theoretical ideas for analysis of contemporary Australian culture. This study will be combined with my developing thought to produce visual images. These ideas will, once brought into being themselves, suggest and modify the course to be followed and so help to determine the destination of the work. The objective would be to make images which shift the historically generated boundaries of thought, the cultural paradigm within which thought of the world must take place. The method used would be to produce images that illuminate the socially determined and exclusionary nature of the cultural paradigm. The image sources will be popular cultural traditions such as comics, magazines and childrens illustrations. The aim is to make a body of work that as representation/ argument/communication will have been produced through the interaction of their art, my biases and your institution.