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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Always Running At Sunset, Amelia O'Neill Apr 2022

Always Running At Sunset, Amelia O'Neill

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis show includes paintings that depict scenes of the trails that my dog and I frequent in Utah. These paintings are a response to experiences I have in nature and explore my relationship with my dog and the surrounding flora and fauna along the local trails. The paintings include images of rocks, sticks, dirt, trails, dogs, clouds, and dried sunflowers in the wind. In addition to realistic depictions of nature, my paintings reflect on the psychological and emotional state of being in nature. The title of the show is Always Running at Sunset, which is meant to be taken …


Orbiting Forward (Thoughts On The Nature Of Conflict - Sighs On The Struggles Of Change), Bushra A. Alsughayer Jan 2020

Orbiting Forward (Thoughts On The Nature Of Conflict - Sighs On The Struggles Of Change), Bushra A. Alsughayer

Theses and Dissertations

Today’s world is a wide open hyper-connected sphere where human societies worldwide exist in a complex crossroads of historical conditions, ideologies, and power structures. A pool of constant confrontations, minor or major, between the traditional and the progressive, the local and the international, the materialistic and the transcendent, the pragmatic and the idealistic, and countless layers of meaning. For an individual who exists in such an intense moment of history, it seems almost inescapable to be exposed to, affected by, or even involved in a major conflict. A situation that makes individuals always in a critical position where every role …


So . . . We're Going For A Walk: A Placed-Based Outdoor Art Experiential Learning Experience, Priscilla Anne Stewart Aug 2019

So . . . We're Going For A Walk: A Placed-Based Outdoor Art Experiential Learning Experience, Priscilla Anne Stewart

Theses and Dissertations

Schools in the United States often emphasize making children competitive in a global economy while neglecting the importance of developing citizens who are ecologically responsible. Problems of climate change, loss of biodiversity, mass extinctions and degradation of the natural environment, are often ignored. Some researchers have suggested that children lack unstructured play time in nature, have an increased amount of screen time, lack mindfulness, and are insulated from the natural world. Many children rarely have significant experience with nature's wildness. It is common for people to experience a sense of placelessness in the hyper-mobility of present times where "globalizing" agendas …


Aviary Of The Reverend William J. Long, Shae Lewis Warnick Mar 2019

Aviary Of The Reverend William J. Long, Shae Lewis Warnick

Theses and Dissertations

Humans perceive the natural world in a subjective and sensual way, yet over time science has turned the study of nature into a progressively objective pursuit. The Aviary of the Reverend William J. Long is an installation of anthropomorphic bird dolls that examines the roles of science and sentiment in our interactions with the natural world.


I Thought The Earth Remembered Me, Hannah Bates Jan 2019

I Thought The Earth Remembered Me, Hannah Bates

Theses and Dissertations

The forest is teeming with activity: fungi transform dead logs into nutrients, roots entangle themselves with the earth, and strong winds break resilient boughs. Like the forest, the human body functions according to a complex system of agents - from the micro bacteria in the gut to the pores of the skin. The built world has often been rendered in opposition to these processes of nature. As a vessel through which the world is experienced, the body is an intermediary between raw matter and fabricated things. The planet is suffused with human life, and there is a critical tension between …


Invisible Forces, Sarah E. Mullin May 2017

Invisible Forces, Sarah E. Mullin

Theses and Dissertations

I seek abstract forms evocative of the underlying structures in nature. I paint sensations of vibrating light, deep space, and vast scale in an imagined image. These paintings combine an inner abstract dimension with landscape imagery to communicate to the viewer that we are a part of what we sense in nature.


Hints Of Wholeness, Dylan Yvonne Welch Sep 2016

Hints Of Wholeness, Dylan Yvonne Welch

Theses and Dissertations

The fertile tension between what we know and don’t know about ourselves is the mystery that invigorates existence. In this essay, I posit that beauty is found in a knot of knowability and unknowability bound together in wholeness. This work contemplates our unique receptivity to that underlying but invisible wholeness which makes its presence known as beauty in nature immediately around us and on a cosmic scale.


Dispersal: A Multidisciplinary Investigation Of Plant Life, Alexandra E. Arzt Jan 2015

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 Jan 2015

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 …


Postcession, Evan D. Pomerantz Jan 2015

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.


Underlying Conditions, Mariam Eqbal May 2013

Underlying Conditions, Mariam Eqbal

Theses and Dissertations

The following is a collection of lines, curves, and dots on a plane, representing words fashioned to communicate my ideas about relationships between the thing and the nothing. This thesis is like a map, a contour drawing, an assortment of lines, speaking my thoughts about things in relation to space and time. As something moving, developing into another thing, as a thing sentient, I am viewing, performing, and processing incremental acts. I am looking at water and I can see my reflection break into a thousand pieces. It is like watching time.


Outside Things, Jacob Sorenson May 2011

Outside Things, Jacob Sorenson

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis is a description of the issues encountered during the process of research and construction of the objects leading to, and consisting of, the work shown in Outside Things. The work is my attempt to gain personal insight into the complicated relationship between nature and culture. Through abstract furniture objects, floral patterns, and robots I explore the relationship between actual landscape and the constructed man-made bio-mimicry that convolutes the definition of Nature.


Finding Myself Here, Cari Freno Apr 2009

Finding Myself Here, Cari Freno

Theses and Dissertations

Both the natural and civilized worlds establish a context within which I may understand my own existence. My search for “self” and the emotive qualities of life within these contexts provides the impetus for my work. I create juxtapositions: from found art assemblages to, more recently, intimate experiences in public park environments. Within these curated experiences I challenge myself to open up to unknown experiences derived from my relationship to the landscape and the life forms found within. My videos are a kind of self-surveillance fostering absurdly promiscuous behavior when I am alone, in front of a camera. These conjured …