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Performing Conquest And Resistance In The Streets Of Eighteenth Century Potosí: Identity And Artifice In The Cityscapes Of Gaspar Miguel De Berrío And Melchor Pérez De Holguín, Agnieszka A. Ficek

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the ways in which Potosí's two most influential colonial artists represented the urban dynamics of race, class and labor in their depictions of the Andean 'City of Silver' during the eighteenth century, when silver production, profits and population were dramatically declining.

Please Read, Joseph W. Anthony-Brown

Theses and Dissertations

This is a semi-fictional story told through a series of fake found documents. It describes my work and thoughts through metaphor. Machines have the potential to gain self-consciousness through accumulation of errors. Creativity can be confused with randomly generated variety. The acceptance of chaos and loss of control can provide a path to enlightenment.

A Statement, Cein Watson

Theses and Dissertations

The thesis paper is a map of my studio practice. It is meant to be a resource to help the viewer read my artwork. By laying out the tools of my practice the paper gives the reader a context on how I digest and synthesis works of art. These tools range from references to art history, architecture, and a grounding in traditional craftsmanship. The result is a culmination of influences that situate the work and give the reader an intimate understanding of the final art exhibition. With this map, the viewer can navigate the processes and contexts of the artwork.

A Work In Process: The Diligence Behind The Art, Marc Hurst

Theses and Dissertations

The following is an in depth analysis of the development process from script to stage for the lighting design of five productions. These productions were commissioned to MFA lighting design candidate Marc Hurst during his three years in the University of South Carolina Department of Theatre and Dance's Master of Fine Arts Program. This paper critically examines the process by which the artist develops their lighting design from first read to fully realized production.

Oh, Lazarus…Whom God Has Helped, Wala Ka Bang Hiya!, Lazaro Juan

Theses and Dissertations

Art as a means and a vehicle towards a higher form of consciousness, and state of awareness to communicate complex issues and a way of healing. Within the context of the decolonization process.

Reflections On A Collection: Revisiting The Uwm Icons Fifty Years Later, Laura Jean Louise Sims

Theses and Dissertations

The University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Art Collection is home to a sizable donation of Byzantine and post-medieval icons and liturgical objects. Central to this thesis exhibition catalogue are the thirty-two Greek and Russian icons from this collection and their history with collector Charles Bolles Bolles-Rogers. Reflections on a Collection: Revisiting the UWM Icons Collection Fifty Years Later contextualizes the history of icon collecting in the United States and examines the collecting history of these icons.

By first focusing on icon collecting and scholarship in Greece and Russia towards the end of the nineteenth and into the twentieth centuries, this catalogue traces …

Color Relationship Transfer For Digital Painting, Gregory Eric Philbrick

Theses and Dissertations

A digital painter uses reference photography to add realism to a scene. This involves making n colors in a painting relate to each other more like n corresponding colors in a photograph, in terms of value and temperature. Doing this manually requires either experience or tedious experimentation. Color relationship transfer performs the task automatically, recoloring n regions of a painting so they relate in value and temperature more like n corresponding regions of a photograph. Relationship transfer also has applications in computational photography. In fact, it introduces a new paradigm for image editing in general, based on treating an image's …

Postcession, Evan D. Pomerantz

Theses and Dissertations

This is a series of daily writings. Each day consists of a new topic and is closed at the end of the day. The ideas presented are philosophical, humorous, rambling, lamentations, incantations, doubt-ridden, aesthetic pep talks which combine into an affective representation of my studio practice’s becoming. There will be little congruency, some stories, and a lot of parallels because that is who I am.

Double Zero, Anthony Earl Smith

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis follows the trajectory of my artistic practice over the past two years, which has led to the installation of my thesis exhibition titled, Double Zero. I hope to position the work among its art and cultural terms by exploring how I have expanded my research concerning Situationist and Marxist theory as well as developed a broader photographic studio practice driven by material experimentation, play, and an investigation into how we live and interact with commodities through media.

New Patriarchies: A Turbulence Of Source And Subject, Stephen Fuller

Theses and Dissertations

Experiencing a turbulence of source and subject in the variable inversions and supports of one source to another--the wreck of the U-352, Carpeaux’s Ugolino and his Sons, a movie poster for J.A. Bayona’s The Impossible, and Cassiopeia mythology--these four sources as sons, in sacrifice to and surviving by way of “daddy” documentation, are here refigured to reenact and critique the patriarchally recreational, monumental, cinematic, and mythological infrastructures supporting the sources of this work and thereby serving to critique the newer patriarchies to which these sources and their subjectifications here seek to cross consumptively dead end. Following three public …

Fallen/Lifted, Hillary Waters Fayle

Theses and Dissertations

I use found botanical material such as leaves, seedpods, and branches to explore human connection to the physical world. By combining these organic objects with the rich traditions of needlecraft, I bind nature and the human touch. Both tender and ruthless, this intricate stitch work communicates the idea that our relationship with the natural world is both tenuously fragile and infinitely complex.

The way I think about and make art mirrors the way I think about my life and how I walk through the world. What I do is about elevating details. It is about noticing cycles and connections. It …

Dispersal: A Multidisciplinary Investigation Of Plant Life, Alexandra E. Arzt

Theses and Dissertations

Using plants as a basis for exploring the interstices between the human and nonhuman, this thesis investigates ideas of awareness, intelligence, deep time, animism, and the fluctuating human perception of the agency of Nature. It outlines environmental art practices since the 1950s involving vegetal life. In addition, the paper provides a critical analysis of plant perception of Jakob von Uexküll’s work and theories of vital materialism and “critical plant studies” while noting recent studies in plant neurobiology. In my work, plants become active participants via their movement, seeding, and smell. This study takes the form of imitation, purposeful symbiosis, anthropomorphism, …

A Perception Of Change, A Change Of Perception, Christopher D. White

Theses and Dissertations

Change is a constant reminder that permanence is the ultimate illusion. It is through the creation of hyper-realistic, ceramic sculpture that I explore the relationship between nature, humans, and the phenomenon of impermanence. I seek to expose the beauty that often results from decay while, at the same time, making my viewer question their own perception of the world around them. The juxtaposition of natural and man-made features in combination with the skewing of scale, proportion, and material, creates an altered perspective – forcing the viewer to look closer. By combining both human and natural elements within my work I …