Masters

These sculptures were produced for my Master’s Degree in Fine Arts, which I was awarded by the University of Cape Town in 1988. The title of the thesis is ‘A Group of Satirical Sculptures Examining Social and Political Paradoxes in the South African Context’.

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Much of the work dealt with the military and its impact on the individual and the country. I wanted to lampoon abuses of power and patriarchy in general. The painted wooden colon sculptures from West Africa and the formal language of the works of Professor Bruce Arnott, my supervisor, were principal influences.

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My degree was completed, in part, as a way to avoid conscription into the South African Defence Force. The End Conscription Campaign, a movement to end the compulsory conscription of white youth into the apartheid army, was a significant political force for change and one with which I immediately identified when it was launched in 1983. The cultural activism in which I was involved outside academic research inevitably impacted on my studio work.

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This conflation of the personal with the political informed my work then and continues to do so now.

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‍^BM