Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Art And Symbolism: The Technique Of Applying Hidden Meaning And Communicating Specific Ideas Through Art, Andrea C. Macbean

Senior Honors Theses

Symbolism is an artistic style frequently used in the arts. Through the course of art history, it was its own artistic movement as well. The incorporation of specific symbols, shapes, colors, or identifiable images communicates to the viewer an intended message or statement. Frequently, symbolism appears to be hidden or initially unperceived by the intended audience. In some works, symbolism is so abstract that it needs explanation or clarification to be understood completely by the viewer. This thesis will analyze a few techniques of symbolism that can be incorporated in a work of art to communicate truth, entice thought, point …

"It Could Have Been Me": The 1983 Death Of A Nyc Graffiti Artist, Erik Nielson

School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications

"It could have been me. It could have been me."
These were the words uttered by painter Jean-Michel Basquiat, who was deeply shaken after he heard the story of a black graffiti artist who was beaten to death by New York City police. Seeing his own life reflected in the death of a fellow artist, Basquiat went on to create Defacement (The Death of Michael Stewart), not only to commemorate the young man's death, but also to challenge the state-sanctioned brutality that men of color could face for pursuing their art in public spaces.

Convocation 2013 Address By Denise Pelletier, Denise Pelletier

Convocation Addresses

No abstract provided.

Styleless Style? What Photorealism Can Tell Us About “The Sixties”, Craig J. Peariso

Art, Design & Visual Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

This essay reads 1960s “photorealist” painting and its critical reception against two sets of contemporary social analyses. First, it places these artistic and critical works next to Pierre Bourdieu's 1965 text Photography: A Middle-Brow Art, demonstrating that, although the critical literature surrounding “photorealism” tended to assume that its involvement with photography grew out of a desire for an objective realism, contemporary thought on photography was anything but convinced of the medium's transparency. Second, it looks to cultural critics like Susan Sontag and Jacob Brackman to propose that, rather than seeing the art of this period in opposition to the …

Emily Hanako Momohara Interview, Madeleine Tick

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio:

Emily Hanako Momohara grew up near Seattle, Washington and earned her BFA in Photography and her BA in Art History from the University of Washington. She went on to receive her MFA in Expanded Media from the University of Kansas, where she studied under Roger Shimomura, She was an Associate Professor of Art at the Art Academy of Cincinnati where she headed the photography major through 2013. Now Momohara is in her studio fulltime. Momohara has exhibited nationally, most notably at the Light Factory with artists Mary Ellen Mark, Sara Moon and other. She has been a visiting …

Andrew Bae Interview, Richard Park

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: While Andrew Bae is situated in Chicago, he has clients from all over the globe. Born and raised in Seoul, South Korea, Andrew Bae picked up on the business of galleries after attending school and studying chemistry and worked as a chemist for several years. Although his gallery is in one of the more desirable locations of River North, he doesn't seem to carry that many artists. He prefers a limited selection of artists (around 10) as he feels there is more personal connection with his artists especially as a gallery owner. Though the business is changing, Andrew Bae …

Beatty, Roger Dean (Sc 1039), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 1039. Thesis titled “Chester Cornett: A Study of the Effects of Culture Change on a Traditional Craftsman,” by Roger Dean Beatty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, Kentucky, 1975.

Kompha Seth Interview About The Cambodian Association Of Illinois, Matthew Mrozinski

Asian American Art Oral History Project

About the Organization:

“Founded in 1976, the Cambodian Association of Illinois (CAI) serves some 5,000 Cambodians in Illinois via senior health intervention; child and youth services; family health, citizenship and employment. CAI enables refugees and immigrants from Cambodia residing in Illinois, especially those in metropolitan Chicago, to become self-sufficient, productive participants in American society while preserving and enhancing their cultural heritage and community.”

About the co-Founder:

“Kompha Seth, co-Founder and Executive Director of CAI since 1981. He was a Buddhist monk in Cambodia for 23 years before emigrating to the U.S. in 1975. He has received numerous national, state and …

Shital Patel Interview, Alark Patel

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio: Attempting, day and night, to live with a dash of color, creativity, and courage. Life is beautiful :)

Art, for me, is an exploration of my true self…with each work I come closer and closer to my own identity. It is a means through which I lose myself in a world of great wonder and amazement, only to emerge a few hours later rejuvenated, empowered, and slightly wiser than I was when I started.

My work attempts to merge the thoughts and ideals of my Indian culture with my life experiences as an American. I have been fortunate …

Paper - A Reserve Or Backgound?, Brian Fay

Conference Papers

Paper: A Reserve or a Background?

“Using examples from contemporary practice and my own research, this presentation will discuss two models for the role of paper in drawing: as background and as reserve. It will focus on Walter Benjamin's definition for the graphic lines almost metaphysical relationship to the background, and compare it with Norman Bryson's model of the paper as a reserve, for him an 'area without qualities'.”

Pao Hoau Her Interview, Bentley "Libby" Christenson

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio: Pao Houa Her is a visual artist base in Minnesota. She studied at Minneapolis College of Art and Design and at Yale University School of Art. She can be reached at pher.82@gmail.com. Bio from- http://phphoto.nfshost.com/?page_id=33

Pao Houa Her was born in Laos. In 1986 after the Vietnam War ended, Pao and her family moved to Thailand and a year later moved to Minnesota. Pao is the oldest of seven and currently resides in Minneapolis, MN. She has received a B.F.A. in photography at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and was the first Hmong individual …

Dan S. Wang Interview, Katy Canzone

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio:

Dan S. Wang is a writer, artist, organizer, and printer who was born in the American Midwest in 1968 to immigrant parents. Dan’s constant concerns are the relationships between art + politics, critical reflection + social action, place + history. His research includes inquiries into the postindustrial cultural politics of the Midwest, letterpress printing as an archaeology of obsolescence, race and difference in the theater of crisis capitalism, and the cultural landscape of postsocialist China.

As a print media artist he primarily uses letterpress printing and hand set typography but avails himself of other media as words and …

Joanne Aono Interview, Charlie Lacke

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: Joanne Aono is a Japanese American Sansei artist, born in Chicago. She received a BFA from Drake University with post graduate classes through the SAIC.

Solo and two person exhibitions of her paintings and drawings include South Shore Arts, Images Gallery, Eyeporium Gallery, Dayton Street, and 303 Erie Artspace, with an upcoming solo show at the Lee Dulgar Gallery. Joanne has shown in numerous group exhibitions including Julius Caesar, Contemporary Art Workshop, Governor’s State University, Woman Made Gallery, Beverly Art Center, Northern Illinois University, and Art Chicago International. She has received City of Chicago Arts grants in addition to …

Hamza Salim Interview, Julian Coleman

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: Hamza J. Salim is a Palestinian artist, architect, and community based activist from Chicago, Illinois. He earned his masters in Architecture from the University of Illinois at Chicago and his work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in New York, Chicago, Los Angels, London and Dubai. He is currently serving as the Project Director of the 12th Chicago Palestine Film Festival and is the Immigrant Community Coordinator at a non-for-profit social service agency, Arab American Family Services.

Bio from facebook.com/HamzaJSalimStudio/info

See also: http://www.hamzajsalim.com/

Agravio: A Technical Direction Project, Erica G. King

Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts: Student Research, Performance, and Creative Activity

Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln (UNL) opened the Fall 2012 season in the Howell Theatre on October 4, 2012 with Agravio. My thesis project was the technical direction of Agravio. As the technical director, I took the designer’s ideas and made them a reality on stage. My responsibilities included organization, construction drawings, ordering supplies, problem solving, supervising build, and the budgeting of time, people and money. In the course of this thesis I will discuss the process I took to assure the set would be built on time and under budget, …

Roger Shimomura Interview, John Beale

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio: (The following biography was taken from Roger Shimomura’s Press Release Biography on his website http://www.rshim.com/) Roger Shimomura’s paintings, prints, and theatre pieces address sociopolitical issues of ethnicity. He was born in Seattle, Washington and spent two early years of his childhood in Minidoka (Idaho), one of 10 concentration camps for Japanese Americans during WWII.

Shimomura received a B.A. degree from the University of Washington, Seattle, and an M.F.A. from Syracuse University, New York. He has had over 130 solo exhibitions of paintings and prints, as well as presented his experimental theater pieces at such venues as the …

Phillip Chen Interview, Christina Morris

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio: Phillip Chen received the B.F.A. degree from University of Illinois at Chicago and the M.F.A. degree from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His prints have been exhibited in over one hundred and fifty locations nationally and internationally and are held by public collections that include The Brooklyn Museum, The New York Public Library, The Carnegie Institute Museum of Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, The San Francisco Museum of Fine Arts, and The Hunterian Museum, Glasgow, Scotland. He has traveled extensively as a visiting artist and has served as an evaluator for the National Endowment …

Wing Young Huie Interview, Anna Hendrickson

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio: Photographer Wing Young Huie earned a B.A. in journalism from the University of Minnesota in 1979. Huie became a full time professional photographer in 1989 and is most well known for his photographs documenting people in a culturally diverse and changing urban landscape. Several of his projects focus on Minneapolis and St. Paul neighborhoods. Huie’s photographs have been exhibited nationally and internationally in St. Paul, Minneapolis, Chicago, Westport, New York City, West Palm Beach, Budapest, and Rotterdam. Four books based on Huie’s photography projects have been published and are listed in the Selected Works. – Bio from …

Path - Loss, Gregory S. Cook

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

The term “path loss” could be considered somewhat idiomatic – it refers at once to a very specific technical definition and an easily relatable conceptualization, but perhaps its most immediate read is one of defeat, literally “a path, lost.” I find this beautifully problematic. In its original end as a term in radio-engineering, it’s used to describe the attenuation of a signal through physical space on its way to a receiver – that is, “path loss” describes some kind of thin-ness of intensity, the parts of something snagged along the way; parts caught in bedrock, lost in soil, or tangled …

Geographies Of Story, Emma Nishimura

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

Family stories are told and retold, evolving over time with new details and other layers. One story merges with the next, while photographic images, oral and written accounts dissolve into the fabric of memory, building the family narrative. Both individual and collective, these histories continue to grow and transform as a new language is created, one that is visual, written, spoken and unspoken. As the complexities develop, the impact of these stories on our lives and the need to make sense of them in relation to our own identities increases. Yet, as I wade through my own family’s tales, the …

Constructions, Sean Ryan Larson

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

I have always been drawn to investigating the nature of ambiguous objects; objects whose role is unclear; objects that fall between distinct categories, and that exist in what appears to be transitional stages. The pieces I make provoke the imagination by building in experimental self-defined systems that refer to contemporary architecture, as well as comment on the ceramic and non-ceramic process. My pieces vary in form and intention just as the skyline carries changes in form and order. I want to make experimental objects that develop in front of me from the ground up, without a pre-planned result. Using fundamental …

Integrating Art And Science In Undergraduate Education, Daniel Gurnon, Julian Voss-Andreae, Jacob Stanley

Faculty Scholarship

The prevailing vision for undergraduate science education includes increased collaboration among teachers of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) and an overhaul of introductory courses [1–4]. But by staying within the borders of STEM, are we overlooking connections between the arts and innovative science? Likewise, are we missing an important opportunity to inspire and inform nonscientists? Here we explore how weaving the visual arts into a science curriculum can both help develop scientific imagination and engage nonscientists. As an example, we describe a recent collaboration between artists and scientists to create a series of science-inspired sculptures.

Negotiating Postwar Landscape Architecture: The Practice Of Sidney Nichols Shurcliff, Jeffrey Scott Fulford M.D., M.P.H., M.L.A.

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

While documentation of the work of a select group of modernist landscape architects of the mid-twentieth century is available, little is known about the professional contributions of transitional landscape architects active in the period following World War II. Using selected projects framed by existing literature covering contemporary social, economic, political, and artistic influences, this study examines the career of one such transitional figure, Sidney Nichols Shurcliff (1906-1981). Project descriptions and analysis measure the scope of Shurcliff's work and the degree to which he contributed to the discipline and its transition to modernism, thereby augmenting the history of landscape architecture practice.

Detritus In Situ, Ariel R. Lavery

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

This thesis paper explores some of the cultural phenomena that influence my conceptual framework and describes the logic behind the formal decision-making that defines my work. Beginning with a description of the nature of the materials and environments I appropriate, this thesis aims to deconstruct the layered system of binaries that build the logic behind my work. The concerns in my work circulate around domestic consumption and the objects detritus, a term coined in the paper, that are produced as a result. However, rather than allow the objects detritus to remain cast-aways of a culture of excess, my work …

Firing The Canon, John M. Byrd

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Firing the Canon is written in conjunction with is namesake exhibition, prepared as a culmination of work leading to the master of fine arts degree. In an attempt to help viewers better understand my body of work, I discuss herein: events contributing to my personal narrative, major themes and their origins and pertinent sources of artistic and non-artistic inspiration.

Walks To Nowhere, Lauren Pleveich

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

This essay is an academic justification for a means of producing images explained mainly through ideas of experiential memory.

Corporeal Thresholds, Caroline Valites

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

This text is a written articulation of my MFA thesis show entitled Corporeal Thresholds. It aims to share the poignant moments that inspired the work and contextualizes my practice within the framework of metaphysics and the phenomenology of perception. Specific topics include the body and the visceral, doubt and certainty, love and loss, and the defining spaces that influence our lives.

One Breath/ One Line, Theresa Antonellis

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

The scale of the body, the accretion of marks, the pace of the breath and a list of rules, underlie the work. These are parts of the process. I give myself over to the process. The drawing is evidence of the process. During process, there is constant struggle for dominance between the points of attention. Limitations of the body, habits of the mind, observation of the breath, and action of drawing compete for dominance. When are equal, the state of meditation arises. To me this is ultimate freedom. The intention is the viewer will also find freedom in contemplative viewing …

What Is Art? Ages 5-7, Alma Porras, Lilybeth Valencia

Curricula

No abstract provided.

The Artist Avengers: The Power Of Art, Marina Santana, Ashley Dee Abarca

Curricula

No abstract provided.