Sculpture Commons^™

James Maurelle: On-Site, James Maurelle, Odili Donald Odita, Kinaya Hassane

Visual and Performing Arts

Catalog for solo art exhibition On-Site by James Maurelle, at the CUE Art Foundation in New York, NY from September 17th through October 23rd 2021. The exhibition was curated and mentored by Odili Donald Odita. It consists of sculptures and prints crafted from materials such as wood, metal, and found objects that weld form and function with Black cultural histories. Through a formal engagement with a vernacular derived from Black American traditions of making and African woodworking traditions, the work celebrates methods of defiance and achievement in the face of oppressive systems and structures, speaking to what Odita refers …

An Escapist Utopia, Sara Eh Denney

Theses and Dissertations

As an active pursuit of avoiding excellence, my work acts as a space for failure, play, experimentation and imperfection. This document and final installation acts as a pause along a lifelong journey of object-making, creation, and spirituality. My work, specifically my working practice, rather than any one object or moment, is an escapist utopia for myself. My work is the process, the journey, not the ending or the completion of any one thing. The repetition, distortion, and production that I engage throughout my working practice acts as a spiritual exercise of meaning—making through creation. I fall deeply in love with …

Form Follows Culture, Nada Raafat Elkharashi

Theses and Dissertations

We all use everyday objects as part of our daily routines, but the way we use them varies from one culture to another. Using George Herbert Mead’s study of human conduct and Louis H. Sullivan’s credo, “Form follows function,” this thesis examines the cultural meanings and implications surrounding the fundamental act of drinking water. Using a methodology of iterative, exploratory making, a collection of glass vessels explores philosophical and physical manifestations of Islamic cultural principles derived from the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم. With the goal of restoring cultural integrity to our daily activities, the work highlights …

Earth Tone Sigh Spell, Martha Glenn

Theses and Dissertations

A written accompaniment to the artist’s thesis exhibition titled Earth Tone Sigh Spell, conceived during the years 2020-21 and installed at The Anderson Gallery, Richmond from May 1–15, 2021.

The following thesis explores themes of personal memory, geo-theory, myth, symbol, and historical event. The artist uses research and stream of consciousness writing methods as a way to weave these concepts together and tie them back to her own practice with installation, sculpture, and new media.

As Many Names As Objects, Luke Herrigel

Senior Projects Spring 2021

“And we: spectators, always, everywhere,

turned toward the world of objects, never outward.

It fills us. We arrange it. It breaks down.

We rearrange it, then break down ourselves”

• Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies

“Honesty is Unbelievable”

• A Bumper Sticker I Saw

For my senior show I used collected materials, found objects, personal ephemera (both genuine and fabricated), paintings and sculpture to make installations that I would change every night of the show’s duration. Each morning the installation would be photographed, left for only a few hours, and then would be uninstalled to make way for creating a new iteration. …

Hidden, Carlotta Rose Maruca

Senior Projects Spring 2021

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Verify In Field, Zohar Propp-Hurwitz

Senior Projects Spring 2021

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Sweet Fruit, Daa Guy-Vasson

Theses and Dissertations

The writing and images in Sweet Fruit are an exploration of my creative works. In the first section, memory, making, and poetics come together to help the reader feel the nuances of my experience. In the exhibition works section, images allow an extended look at the work. Accompanying text describes the relevance of my childhood and my parent's Caribbean upbringing to my creative practice.

A Third Culture Kid's Quest For Belonging: Ephemeral, Eternal, And The Space In Between, Simona Darshani Wiig

Honors Undergraduate Theses

In fulfillment of my degree of Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Central Florida specializing in sculpture and ceramics, I have produced a body of artwork in a range of media, including printmaking, bookbinding, painting, ceramics, and sculpture. This thesis is the exegesis of my creative work, informed by contemporary artworks and the study of shelter-making in nature. Utilizing The Practitioner Model of Creative Cognition as defined by R. Lyle Skains, I will establish my work as practice-based research. While "exegesis" generally refers to the critical examination of written work, I feel it is appropriate in this context …

Reanimator/Reflection: 
Creating Mirrors Through Time 
With Ai, Sound, Video And Live-Generated Art In The Dark Age Of The Covid-19 Pandemic, Eric Millikin

Theses and Dissertations

For my MFA thesis exhibition entitled Reanimator/Reflection, I used artificial intelligence to create three new works of sound and live-generated video art, each based on mirror reflections and 100-year-old racist post-pandemic horror literature by early 20th century American author H. P. Lovecraft. The themes of these writings mirror the issues of our current time. The primary works of Lovecraft that I referenced in the exhibition are “Herbert West: Reanimator,” (1922) a serialized tale about graduate school experiments which attempted to return the dead to life during a plague, and “Nyarlathotep,” (1920) a prose poem that suggests even our dreams …

Alteration, Jared Jennings

Master's Theses

Mental illness is surprisingly far more common than people care to believe. This is in part due to the stigma which follows close behind it. Stigma, a mark of disgrace, began before medical experts and psychologists started studying mental illness in the 1840s. Before this time mental illness was seen as demonic possession. Usually, severe mental illness develops genetically. Although severe cases of mental illness are rare, the media has exploited them such as Jekyll and Hyde, Psycho, or Frailty. This stigma has caused many individuals who may suffer from mental illness to avoid treatment. I tell the stories of …

Hyperstatic, Zane Mahanna

Master's Theses

Hyperstatic is a designation given to structural elements when internal and external forces acting upon them are unable to be definitively calculated. The integrity of equilibrium therefore remains undetermined. The juxtaposition of literal, architectural forms, against the metaphorical, structural, hierarchies that govern society, seeks to question the very nature of humanity’s equilibrium often with a dose of comedic elements. The subversive humor manifested in my work is employed not only to make light of serious questions about the nature of existence, but also to disarm the viewer of preconceived notions about the esoteric seriousness of high art. This thesis catalog …

Sacred Industry, Joshua Heimsoth

Master's Theses

Thesis show revolving around the design concepts found in religious art and in the functional beauty of industrial design with observations on the beauty and hypocrisy in both power structures.

Ties That Bind Us, Christine M. Orr, Christine M. Orr

Theses and Dissertations

when objects converge in a space

they start a dialogue of their lives

lives that become entangled with your life

your memory

objects are the narrators of memory

a stain, a chip, a tear

materials embed meaning and metaphor within the process of creating

woven cloth, throwing lines, squeezed and pressed coils

all become remnants of the hand

as I make, play, and collect materials and objects

questions are brought forward

How do these components talk to one other?

What are they saying?

How do I listen?

knowledge is generated in the transformation of material through the process of

making …

Ex-Tensions: Material Entanglement And Intensities, Zohreh Galdizadeh Garmeh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an exploration of the intrinsic capacity of matter and material formations and utilization of art as a mode of inquiry. Ex-tensions: Material Entanglement and Intensities investigates the animism and vibrancy of objects and the hidden interplay between materials and intensities that flow through and around within the spaces that confine us. In this body of work, all forms of material configurations are understood as animated and agential and as different representations of the same substance that are only formally diverse.

The Public Administrator’S Role In Public Art Collaborations: A Case Study Of Public Art In Minnesota Communities, Kurtis Ulrich

School of Business Student Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

The public Administrator’s Role in Public Art Collaborations:

A Case Study of Public Art in Minnesota Communities

By Kurtis G. Ulrich

Hamline University 2021

This study focuses on the planning and implementation of public art in small cities, and the public administrator’s role in public art collaborations within that context. The research highlights the public administrator’s role in public art collaborations and analyzes how public art projects are implemented and sustained in small cities. The study methodology relies on the qualitative case study method to describe the subjective real-world experiences of city managers in public art collaborations within three …

Reclaim, Harris Benjamin Deno

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

I make ceramic and mixed media objects that embody interaction with material. Translated from the simple utterance of the hand the material articulates the labor. As in any relationship there are miscommunications and disagreements; Desperation, struggle, and honest interaction are apparent on the surface of the labored forms. Objects are created in an immediate fashion, the intimacy of the moment folded into the material. Each interaction an embodiment of the human experience. I think of these works as entries in a journal; The gravity of a moment is captured, relieving the mind by bearing that weight.

Whenever approaching a work, …

A Constant State Of Change, Karianne Canfield

Senior Projects Spring 2021

Collecting the unwanted waste of life and compiling it into something beautiful. A reminder that all things can always continue to change. An assertion that I will continue to change with them. Expecting that despite the disregard for what it was, it can be valuable as something else. It is not new, this form which it is transformed into, it was always there as an opportunity for it to become. Made of items from across my past, this was always an option of what I could be. From here it will continue to reform and reuse its materials and meanings, …

Hold Me, Nell Anna Dreyfus

Senior Projects Spring 2021

Through this body of work, I have been exploring objects that hold. Each of these pieces are vessels or carriers that reference the body and its individual parts. Each item was carefully considered and alludes to so much more than their individual uses and purposes. I believe that all these objects have strong meanings and associations because of their presence in everyday life--they are universal and recognizable. I have brought attention to objects that often go unnoticed and overlooked because of their common uses in everyday life. By painting them the same color as the floor, I camouflaged them into …

Quimby's Quests, Jamie E. Hoelzel

Senior Projects Spring 2021

Introduction to Quimby:

Quimby, the little green pom-pom with googly eyes and pipe-cleaner limbs, was my quarantine companion last Spring Semester while I was on the mostly empty campus. He was created during the beginning stages of the pandemic while I was stuck here at Bard finishing my classes remotely. They could go on adventures using his imagination while we were in quarantine, and they have followed me in my work ever since.The purpose of their creation was for their cute and simple character to use their imagination to have some wholesome fun, hopefully bringing smiles to people’s faces.

Quimby …