Arts and Humanities Commons^™

What An Interesting Video To Put On The Internet (An Amusing Economic Indicator), Dahlia S. Bloomstone

Theses and Dissertations

My exhibition reconciles representations of domesticity, labor, and morality through the lens of sex-work (SW). It consists of video work, a video game, and free-to-take objects, where donation, the strip club, and the fish tank converge. My work concludes that SW is a timeless construct that will always exist even after reimagining multiple worlds.

Ambiguity Of Vision: Reimagining The Hypervisible Void, Kiwha Lee Blocman

Theses and Dissertations

Asking questions about what Painting is in the 21st century and the dominant narratives it can challenge, my paintings complicate the viewer’s reading of pictorial hierarchy and the projection of human relations in the world. I de-hierarchize and decentralize the compositional components that make up a painting by using patterns to create spatial depth, not European perspectival conventions. In dialogue with modernists such as Matisse who drew from the visual vocabulary of “The Orient”, my central forms derived from architecture and ornamental fragments possess a body-like presence. Further, I reinvent ancient Asian printmaking processes with oil paint. Observing the tenets …

Femqorg Index, Nahee Kim

Theses and Dissertations

The project Femqorg Index began as I realized an endless number of chatbots and robots were released into this world as a spark of technology wrapped in a feminine persona, only to be disposed of after a short period. My imagination then extended to the thought that after they were disposed of, the entities along with their memories and advanced technology, would converge to create a network of their own. In this network, needs of the chatbots and robots were met through the exchange of strengths such as an advanced problem-solving ability, or a sturdy body that allowed unrestricted movement. …

(1-12 All The Way Down), Amorelle Jacox

Theses and Dissertations

My paintings are born out of a profound sense of cosmic free-fall. Tables and black holes hover in a realm where slippage between figure, object and space are confused. Metaphor pries open depths of metaphysical inquiry. That, with a brushstroke, the sky’s stomach might fold into a plate, and slip between the days.

Entre El Suelo Y Lo Demas, Maria Jose Garcia Estevez

Theses and Dissertations

My intention is to generate a narrative that challenges the idea of place as a fixed space, a precarious equilibrium experienced through material amalgamations- a constant shift between a recognizable belonging and a casi como o así como place.

Break Time, Quinlan Maggio

Theses and Dissertations

In this graduate thesis artist Quinlan Maggio describes their two-part art project in which they create site-specific private/public spaces and encounters within a larger public, specifically, that of the Hunter MFA community and its art-viewing audience.

Scene By Scene, Katita Miller

Theses and Dissertations

Katita Miller’s paintings and drawings depict quotidian scenes through the filter of an overactive mind. Populated by spectral figures and swirling portals, her interiors and landscapes fluctuate between the mundane and the fantastical. This paper explores the parallels between painting and theater and the context and process behind five paintings.

The Quads, Elmer D. Guevara

Theses and Dissertations

My work attempts to reconcile my familial history. By reconstructing narratives, I am advancing a new sense of our family archive. My goal is to grant the viewer with autobiographical snippets delivered through the piecing and meshing of multiple scenarios and events that derive from family album photos and reimagining spaces.

A Parar Para Avanzar: To Stop/To Stand/To Strike To Advance, Christina N. Barrera

Theses and Dissertations

This paper presents the first fragments of a political framework outlining how I situate my work, which lives between “craft” and “art” models of making and between colonized and colonizing traditions. My writing proposes ways of making and being informed by practices, strategies, and organizing that work towards greater autonomy and liberation under these conditions.

T.R.A.S.H.:Trans-Relational-Affective-Stuff-Horde, Sg P

Theses and Dissertations

T.R.A.S.H. allies the moral confusion underlying (student) debt and the unregulated art market in order to establish a rigorous framework for “RED HOT SHAME”—an open edition contractual performance. In treating an art collector as a collections agency, the Debt Object becomes an Art Object.

The Screen To Desire, Joseph Parra

Theses and Dissertations

Joseph Parra reflects on our often embellished online personas and their effect on our desires. Through luscious 3-dimensional painting Parra translates the seductive desire of the hypermasculine male-presenting figure through glorification and criticality. The tactile painting also acts as a rebellion to accurately represent “real” life on the digital screen.

“For My Will Is As Strong As Yours And My Kingdom As Great”, Anna L. Cone

Theses and Dissertations

My work responds to trauma, systems of power and abuses of power. The pieces give materiality to unseen labor and devalued knowledge, often disseminated from the “feminine,” domestic spaces of kitchens and baths, through practices of magic, astrology, ritual and baking. My materials–jello, hair and kitchen ingredients–refer to complex histories, brought present through film and performance.

Head, Shoulders, Knees, And Toes, Pol Morton

Theses and Dissertations

My work explores ideas of transness, chronic illness, and injury. Through assemblage and repetition, my larger-than-life paintings address the dissociation and fragility of a body that is unmapped by society. These autobiographical works attempt to locate the self when it is trapped, whether in a bed, in the home, or within the body itself.

Slaying The Dragon: Dances Created During The Time Of The Pandemic, Regina Nejman

Theses and Dissertations

Regina Nejman’s paper details a dance artist’s negotiation of art-making in a global pandemic. It focuses on her improvisational dance films that were combined with live performance and animation in a gallery-like viewing environment. She situates herself among the many screendances and digital archives shared during NYC’s lockdown.

Through The Eye Of The Needle: Embroidery As A Tool For Intimacy, Feminism, And Activism, Kristin D. Howell

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the work of contemporary women artists who utilize embroidery as their primary medium. The careful execution of each artwork, whether created by career artists or amateur participants in artist-led projects, simultaneously engages with the legacy of the embroidery arts and explores new strategies of expression.

Fabricated Homogeneity, Kimberly Nam

Theses and Dissertations

My work examines the national identity embedded in the homogeneous culture of Americana, and how that’s infiltrated into the subconscious mind of an immigrant.

By altering and parodying vernacular imageries of Americana, my paintings discuss how they generate a sense of foreignness and reveal the false illusion of cultural homogeneity.

Micro-Metropolis: Space, Work, And Waste In The Maquettes Of Constant And Bodys Isek Kingelez, Shoshanah B. Rosen

Theses and Dissertations

Constant Nieuwenhuys and Bodys Isek Kingelez both create futuristic utopias in the form of architectural maquettes. This comparative study explores each artist’s reverence for technology, global connectivity, and new forms of economic production. It argues that these utopias represent desires endemic to late modernity and capitalism, including consumption, nomadism, automation.

“Paint What You Hate”: Philip Guston’S Hooded Figures And The Postponement Of The Exhibition Philip Guston Now, Thomas Baldwin

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis interrogates the postponement of the Philip Guston Now exhibition, examining the justification for the postponement, the actions taken by the National Gallery of Art, and the effects of the postponement. My research examines the museum’s choice to cite social justice as the main context for understanding Philip Guston.

Water Bearer, Whitney Harris

Theses and Dissertations

My work explores fantasy and mythological archetypes. The exhibition features works on paper depicting mermaids, and a fountain featuring two figures submerged in water, one spitting into the other's mouth. I use black ink and glazes to create variegated surfaces. In these works, I reimagine ideas about power and intimacy.

Play Among The Shadows, Xiong Wei

Theses and Dissertations

This article elaborates Xiong Wei's inspiration and experience from different cultural, political, social systems and art environment as a Chinese artist living in the United States, and the logic and methodology of how he went from a social realist sculptor to a contemporary artist.

Saturated Skies, Childhood Trophies, And Colorful Plants, Nicholas Norris

Theses and Dissertations

My work presents interiors through the guise of memory while focusing on the sentimental objects within them. Through metaphors and signs I give form to certain events, sensations and out-of-perspective observations. Saturated skies, childhood trophies, and colorful plants find their place alongside decorated walls, floors, chairs, tables, rugs and beds.

Trees And Trees And Trees In Me, Areum Yang

Theses and Dissertations

Painting is a recording of my current psychology, and a window through which I can visualize my inner self. My painting won't make my anxiety go away, but it will allow me to work with my emotion and put it in a specific place, so it doesn't control my life.

Theater And Spectacle Of The Inside, Dante G. Cannatella

Theses and Dissertations

Dante Cannatella’s work is about when the landscape reclaims the city, when the lines between inside and outside are blurred, and how lives play out against the truth of uncertainty and impermanence. His gestural paintings reflect growing up amidst the destruction and rebuilding of New Orleans. Set against a backdrop of acid yellows, muddy pinks and greys, the figures are caught in the powerful forces of nature, commerce, and mass thought that shape both their inner worlds and outer realities.

Long Time, Jacob V. Reed

Theses and Dissertations

Jake Reed’s work is driven by the idea that architectural ornament can be imbued with meaning not native to its construction or use. To find that meaning, he deconstructs and reassembles elements from the architectural and ornamental histories he studies, using the growing climate crisis as a generative framework.

Detritus And The Icon, Brian Madonna

Theses and Dissertations

Detritus and the Icon highlights the relationship between the figure and the monument, contrasting between the gravity of earth and the lightness of the Divine. My thesis exhibition of seven paintings, comprised of thirty seven panels, brings the banal into conversation with the age old endeavor of monument building.

Dia.Ries, Katherine A. Doyle

Theses and Dissertations

dia.ries is a pilot episode of an episodic series that offers insight into the lives of a few of the 500 million people around the world with diabetes—otherwise normal, everyday people who happen to be living each day with an “invisible illness.” Produced through video diaries and other user-generated content, the series tells stories from first-person points of view along thematic lines, using a collaborative approach rooted in Third Cinema.

Less Water, More Holy: Tools For Sustainable Ablution, Faheem Khan

Theses and Dissertations

Prayer is an important part of life for many people, whether it takes the form of meditation or talking to God. Muslims pray five times a day, and before each prayer, they first clean themselves by performing ritual ablution (wudu). The eight-step purification process of wudu cleanses the body from head to toe. The Hadiths of Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim tell us the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ needed just one mudd of water (650ml) to complete wudu, but most people consume many times that amount—four-to-seven liters is more common today.

To visualize and better understand the nature …

Eadah: Tools For Celebrating Qatari Wellness Rituals, Abdulrahman Al Muftah

Theses and Dissertations

Friday prayer is an essential congregational practice in Muslim communities. To prepare for Friday prayer, worshippers groom and cleanse themselves ahead of time, according to Islamic ablution rituals, and dress in their best attire.

Eadah is a collection of contemporary tools designed to facilitate the pre-prayer cleansing ritual, inspired by traditional Qatari remedies and wellness practices. The tools reflect three balanced considerations: touch, meditative making, and cultural preservation. They are used to prepare natural ingredients through mindful making that produce remedies with stimulating scents and sensations through touch. An emphasis on cultural preservation differentiates Eadah from other tools offered by …

Until Its Calmness Can Claim You, Gabrielle Mchugh

Theses and Dissertations

This is an invitation to pause //

This is an externalization of my inner landscape, a highlight of what I value in my everyday and what comprises my lexicon of a sacred space. The following is a journey of nets, quiet, the sacred, space, and the in-between; where I share research and questions that are the foundation for my thesis work, Until Its calmness can claim you.

// This is an invitation to find moments of quiet in the noise

A Gun For Every Woman, Gentë Retkoceri

Theses and Dissertations

Six centuries ago in Kosova, my home country, unmarried women known as sworn virgins, were forced to adopt a male persona and carry a gun to protect themselves. But today, guns have become tools of oppression and violence against women. And while the legal system carries penalties for domestic violence, marital rape is excluded. To shine a light on, and expose the topic of hidden violence, my thesis uses artivism to address a sensitive but provocative issue, exhibiting a large-scale sculpture of a gun, designed to provoke raw emotions; to challenge visitors to consider the terror felt by women threatened …