Underbelly: Figurative painting as an exploration of self beyond language
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Authors
Beckwith, Alyssa
Author ORCID Profiles (clickable)
Degree
Master of Creative Practice
Grantor
Unitec, Te Pūkenga – New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology
Date
2025
Supervisors
Smith, Emma
Gorman, Kristy
Gorman, Kristy
Type
Masters Thesis
Ngā Upoko Tukutuku (Māori subject headings)
Keyword
painting
figurative art
abstract art
self in art
memory in art
phenomenology in art
New Zealand
figurative art
abstract art
self in art
memory in art
phenomenology in art
New Zealand
ANZSRC Field of Research Code (2020)
Citation
Beckwith, A. (2025). Underbelly: Figurative painting as an exploration of self beyond language (Unpublished document submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Creative Practice). Unitec, Te Pūkenga - New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology
https://hdl.handle.net/10652/6940
Abstract
RESEARCH QUESTION
How does figurative abstract painting explore and describe temporality, memory and non-verbal embodied human experience, and what opportunities can it generate for the viewer?
ABSTRACT
The human experience is multifaceted and uncertain, and the vessel by which we experience it– the self, is both complex and elusive. It is mind and body. A fluid entity of complicated and entangled dualities, formed and driven by memory, experience, feeling and the substance lingering beneath or in-between consciousness – eluding articulation. Creative practice has the ability to reveal individual, non-verbal and sensate insights both introspectively and through the body. Due to these unique qualities, painting is well suited to search within the transient and elusive territories of experience, memory, perception, feeling, the embodied, the sensate, and the non-verbal. I frame my field of research within the exploration of self, experience, memory and perception. For this, I have been drawing upon insights from artists David Hockney, Michael Armitage, Joshua Hagler, Cecily Brown, Maja Ruznic and Francis Bacon - delving into phenomenological, pictorial and personal concepts within their work. The psychoanalytical theory concerning self and psyche posited by Carl Jung, Julia Kristeva’s work concerning the Unspeakable and abject, and Deleuze’s ‘Logic of Sensation’ are frameworks with which to view the practice.
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