Thelma van Rensburg

I was born in Pretoria, South Africa in 1969. I have a B.A Hons. Degree in Physical education and Psychology and a Masters of Arts degree in Fine Arts completed in 2016 at the University of Pretoria. My art making process includes mixed media, painting and drawing and focuses on the grotesque in female representation. I thus explore the female form, with a focus on female sexuality, beauty and ugliness, otherness, the gaze and the representation of women in the media. I am currently enrolled as a PhD candidate in practice based research at Plymouth University in collaboration with Transart Institute. My thesis focuses on the female corpse in popular culture and a painting practice reliant on abjection as mode of transgression of the "Pretty dead girl" trope in Western culture.