Ablution: Duality and Hybridity in Sculptural Practice

Date
2005
Authors
Hight, Melanie
Supervisor
Redmond, Monique
Braddock, Christopher
Item type
Exegesis
Degree name
Master in Art and Design
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Auckland University of Technology
Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to critically interrogate the duality of the sacred and profane as it is situated within traditional Catholic doctrine through the creation of hybrid sculptural objects. This thesis proposes that traditional understandings of dichotomies can be usefully critiqued through the perspective of indivisibility. This proposition brings to the dichotomy of the sacred and the profane a focus of relationship, integration, interdependence and continuum, rather than segregation, polarity and opposition. It is the argument of this thesis that reviewing dichotomy from this perspective may serve to displace the traditional hierarchy and afford opportunity for new understanding allowing for a more integrated view of ‘other’. Using Catholic iconography as the signifi er for the sacred and the domestic environment as a context for the profane, my studio practice explores the relationship between these signifi ers. I intend my sculptural objects to operate as hybrids that can be sited in an ‘in-between’ space that is neither sacred nor profane but references both.

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Keywords
Catholic Church art , Sculpture , Philosophy , Idols and images in art
Source
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