After some investigation, I have realised that Mauritian Artists can be defined or grouped in many ways. There are off the top of my head:

1 dead ones particularly pre-independence ( 12th March1968)
2 those who were alive and working at the time of independence.
3 There are those who live in Mauritius but who's family paid for them to go and study in Western Europe or the US.
4 second generation Mauritians who's parents emigrated and grew up with free or subsidised University education

Possible Mauritian Art as a Dissertation

Art and Mauritius, I recently went to Mauritius on holiday with my girlfriend, for me it was a chance to see family I haven't seen in years and to re-aquaint my self with the country of my mother's birth. For my girlfriend it gave her an extra insight into me.
One of the justifications I gave for my trip was that I would investigate the art scene and the new art school in Mauritius . I met a Mauritian artist, Krishna Luchoomun, 2 years ago. He had a residency as an overseas artist at the Gasworks a community gallery in Oval, at the time he was talking about playing a founding role in said school.

He seemed very nice more of a statesman than an artist. The work he was exhibiting seemed a little naïve, like a community participation art project, very much passe to a London eye, but I did think about how it might seem from a foreign perspective. What I thought of as cliché such as red buses and telephone boxes are exotic and iconic to a Mauritian especially one who, unlike my family, has not either lived here in London or visited countless times over the years.

I later looked in to his background and he studied art in the USSR pre the fall of the iron curtain. This gave him a very different outlook from the Western European and US arts educated artists I am used to. So

I haven't seen the artists work from the organisation that Krishna has been setting up but I did get to look at some art while I was in Mauritius.

I arrived with my own prejudices particularly towards 'tourist' art, because all I had ever seen of the Mauritian art and handicrafts was hollowed out porcupine fish, minature ships and dodo t-shirts. I actually have bought all of these at one stage or another so it is a little hypocritical, but I did. I was worried that all the painting would be stylised beach scenes and that pop art and conceptualism would have missed Mauritius. It wasn't that I thought it would be backwards but I was worried that the work ethic particularly of those like myself of Indian origin would be so strong that there would be no room for art aimed at Mauritians.

Dissertations notes all in a Jumble

I'd like to investigate the snobbery of fine art. Fine Art is a very odd distinction, for an area that is supposed to be creative and open there is an awful lot of closed mindedness, snobbery is inate in the very name, Fine Art rather than Craft. Somehow the name means 'un-applied' art, art for its own sake, in its own right. For years it meant painting and sculpture and then later it grew to include conceptual art such as performance art and video.

What is strange is the gradual edging out of certain genres. For some reason the figurative work has been 'relegated' by many to craft or illustration

There has been a split in the artworld into a traditionalist supposedly commercial area and a contemporary 'edgy' area.

Painting has been stranded between the two it seems a painting must not actually have taken any craft to be considered Art, well not from the credited artist. And if it does then it may grudgingly be allowed if the work shocks. If your work does none of the above and only if you are old like Hockney or Lucien Freud and haven't had the decency to die, can you be considered a 'respectable' artist.

Why does the art world have such a problem with Charles Saatchi. Is it there own impotence and a self loathing that he brought British art into the late twentieth century from its cottage industry status constantly playing catch up to a dynamic New York post avant garde scene, and he did it by By buying and showing young British artists, while they were still championing elder statesmen and doddery Americans. The fact the nineties is dominated by art that was to his taste is not his 'fault' but his success if he had not put his money in was anyone else going to, did anyone else? Is what galls the critics of the time that he made a new art fashionable rather than the friends who they had been name dropping in 'all the right places' for years.

But was it Saatchi that made it Fashionable or was it that Saatchi was the Zeitgeist, he had been Thatchers Adman understanding what it took to catch the attention of modern masses. So is it surprising that his art that fit his taste in art caught the public imagination.

Some of the work may have been shocking but so was his own work such as the anti-smoking ads, shocking but hellishly effective.

Why is an advertisement not art?
The subliminals of adverts have to communicate to a wide market, but also to a target market.
Who are art subliminals communicating to?
What is the point of a subtle obscure message particularly if it only communicates to an exclusive market ( maybe that is the point)

I'm not saying art should not have subtlety but that it should not be all subtlety, the audience should not have to have contemporary art explained if they are from the same period as the work it should explain itself. If the work cannot get the attention, the artist or the art world should not blame the audience.

The differentiation between high art and low art is entirely artificial, there is no intrinsic reason one artform should survive by right. It is totally subjective, a matter of personal preference Lucien Freud is no more worthy than Jack Vettriano. Its like saying cricket, as much as I love it, is more important than football. I may prefer it, so to me it is, but there is majority that follow football. There is no point in me complaining about it, Football has the audience, I can choose to do something about it to Complexity is not necessarily a good thing Has art been marginalised because of a refusal to be accessible or to communicate with a mass audience ? Are complaints about supposed dumbing down of art just laments for the exclusivity of art . Based on art where the main market was an educated elite and an aspirational 'nouveau riche'.
Hence just a way of protecting its vested interests, by keeping the exclusive status symbol nature of owning Art.

Is the reason art has resisted being mainstream because art intellectuals fear for their careers , why should contemporary art need explaining, by its very nature art should be expressing its own meaning. I have a view that the only explanation an artist should give is a title and only if they want to, if art needs to explain itself then hasn't it failed. Maybe the purpose of art writing is like journalism to inform and to document ?
Why is art not mainstream along with the other creative media like music, film and TV, and books Who are the artists that the art world respects that are not regarded as High Art Lite, is there a lament for the romantic struggling artist figure who only makes it famous at his death or in his late years? The career model is not very appealing, it only allows for the gifted amateur which is a lovely ideal the pure and uncorrupted artist. But like amateur sport it completely prohibits the working class, and the only ones who prosper are those with independent means or rich parents as they are known. There are those who work as lecturers and tutors but this is restricted to those who can afford the education either through privilege of money or being lucky enough to be born in the right country, and have the background that will allow them the freedom to do so.

Diamonds and Skulls part one

On a very simple level these two main components of 'For the love of God' have a long history as symbols not only in art but in human society. The skull could almost be said to be culturally insignificant, because of it ubiquitous nature as long as there have been humans there have been human skulls, and by their very nature they have always been associated with death for the most obvious of reasons. Only from the 20Century has it been possible to see the complete skull, human or otherwise without death being involved.

The skull has long been used as an emblem to represent danger or instill fear, the poison bottle, most famously in the Jolly Roger, skull and cross bones flag, however this seems to be a fictional flag that has been adopted in retrospect. Pirates’ supposed use of it seems to have been picked up on. Its later use has been to associate the flyer with pirates and the no prisoners taken ethos. The Pirate flag itself has been adopted by so called alternative culture. This pirate association has also come to mean alternative from the establishment, and rather than use an accurate depiction it tends to use a styalised ‘pop’ version. The ‘real’ skull is taken to be still taboo it is still a symbol of actual death

There are some wonderful examples of how this has sometimes been elaborated to the whole skeleton, and been used to personify death in European or Western culture. The scythe weilding figure the grim reaper that appears to collect the soul, is rarely completely defined in literature, but has been interpreted as a shrouded skeleton by many artists and film makers. This has in turn been parodied by many, notably and famously by Terry Pratchett in his Discworld books which defined and showed the ridiculousness of the practicalities of this literal interpretation of the metafor. Attempts to make the image more intricate and more scary are dispelled by the parody, it some how returns the gravity and effectiveness of the simple skull.

What is Damien Hirst's Medium?

Damian Hirst is among the few contemporary artists who is known to the 'general public'. He has acheived notoriety along with his contemporary Tracey Emin, even if people cannot name him they would recognise his work. For me the real sign is when work has gained a tabloid newspaper name like Carl Andre's 'Tate Bricks', Emin has 'The Unmade Bed' and 'The Tent' while Hirst has the 'Dead Sheep' the 'Shark' or the 'Pickled Shark' and now the Skull.

If taken literally Hirst seems to have no specific or consistent medium or genre, his series of dead animals from, the Skull, and the Pharmacy, part of the Tate Modern's early hangs would suggest sculpture/installation but his spots and spin paintings would seem to make that sugggest he is also a painter. I would suggest he has to mediums that he is consistent to, which are Sensationalism and Plagiarism.

I should probably illustrate the plagiarism first, as it could be taken to be libellous except for the fact he has had to pay out once to an original artist over a piece which he based on their work. Hymn a 6m tall bronze interpretation of an anatomical model by the toy compay Humbrol and he has been accused of tracing an penguin book illustration for the piece Valium. In a way what Hirst has done is alway to bring these images to a new audience, he particularly takes children toys and brings them out of there original context into a new context. Does he change them enough to make the work his own well that is for the courts to decide, for me it is a new take on the traditional concept of Art holding a mirror to life.