Research in Visual Arts and Design
Susan McMinn (PHD Candidate)
Current and Recent Exhibitions
Selected into the Australian
Panorama Susan's animation 'The Last Warhorse' will be screening
at up to 18 International animation festivals around the globe
including London, Ottawa, the USA, and Estonia. The tour begins
in London at the end of August 2009.
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Writing about her work Susan says:
Hooves and Steel: The Warhorse in Conflict
My PHD research will address and question the romanticised and mythological
narratives depicting the fate of the Australian Light Horse. With particular
interest in the dynamics of the warhorse in conflict, I wish to represent
past histories in a contemporary arena through painting, drawing, technology
and the moving image seeking to answer the following research
questions:
- How is the warhorse
depicted in art throughout history and how is he remembered? I
intend to investigate works of Australian War Artists and documentation
such as poems, letters and songs in relation to past
memories of the soldier and his ‘animal-soldiers’ in
the charge of the Australian Light Brigade.
Of the thousands of horses that went to war only one
returned, the rest were killed in action, died from
injury or disease, or sold. I intend
to carry out research into the fate of many of these
animals using the archival material at the Australian
War Memorial.
- Is
the initial moment of anticipation and expectation before an
event a more powerful evocation than its course or resolution?
I intend to investigate the notion of the ‘event threshold’;
that is the point of entering or beginning of a happening.
- What
are the means by which this 'event threshold', (a point of entering
or beginning of a happening), might be depicted in a still (painted)
image? This will involve an investigation into the depiction of the
initial moment of anticipation and expectation before an
event.
- How
might technology be transferred into traditional art practice
to represent significant stages of motion? An investigation into the interaction between traditional art practices and technology
in relation to methodologies utilised to capture the moving
image and the transformation from digital technology
back into traditional art practice.
- Is the moving image the most successful and
powerful way to capture continuous
movement? This will include exploration into the history of images
which record animal and human locomotion, beginning with that of Eadweard
Muybridge (1830
-1904).
I will investigate painting and drawings that demonstrate a vigorous
and powerful
depiction of the figure in motion, including works by Susan Rothenberg,
Christopher Le Brun and Australian War Artists such as Ivor Hele. There
will be exploration of the techniques employed by Henri Matisse with
the goal of developing
an intense palette to achieve a particular emotional effect appropriate
to the dynamics of the warhorse in motion and the rigours of war.
An investigation into the history of the warhorse in collaboration with
the development of the tough rendering of medium to convey a particular
type of movement in painting will involve research into the following:
The studio methodology will employ digital photography to capture pictorial
representations of movement from video or film, then transformed into
drawings and paintings. Investigative drawings, printmaking
and small scale paintings will be created, instrumental in the exploration
of painterly means to suggest movement. It is intended that the final
presentation will include large-scale oil paintings on canvas and
linen.
Recent Scholarships and Bursaries
M & N Domansky Trust Fund,The Australian
Friends of The Hebrew University, Jerusalem Limited, to research in
Israel to be used for research travel to Israel in February to April
2008
2007 AFUW-ACT accommodation bursary, for
further research at the War Memorial in Canberra in December 2007
William and Elizabeth Fisher Scholarship special prize -Victorian
Federation Of University Women
Animation Media Arts Bursary –for
production of an animation under the guidance of professional artists
in residence at the Visual Arts Center 121 View Street Regina Pessoa
from Portugal in 2007
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