Arts and Humanities Commons^™

It Can't Leave You The Way It Finds You, Kyle Nobles

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

There’s a beautiful innocence in childhood where, although the world is large and new, it feels as though your place in it and the roles that you play are stable and unchanging. In our youth, outside of extraordinary circumstances, we are unburdened by the awareness that everything and everyone is subject to radical change—including our own sense of self. As we grow older though, looking back it becomes clear that this was never the case. In a matter of years, you can change so dramatically that you did not even notice as you became an entirely new person. For me, …

Half-Light, Kelly A. Stading

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

My work explores concealed emotions such as fear, disgust, rage, resentment and shame. This emotional darkness is the underbelly of life, resulting from situations where people are victims of social pressure, trying to survive with what they have, while trying to achieve social norms. The comfort of a home allows these emotional responses to surface. “Half-Light” focuses on my concealed emotions, bringing them out of the dark to be confronted.

Adviser: Santiago Cal

Closely Distant, Crisha Yantis

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

Drawing upon my own experiences and observations of the world around me I use the figure to explore what it means to be human. This body of work addresses the universal experience of anxiety through the dynamics of both personal and interpersonal relationships, specifically focusing on fear of the unknown or what subconsciously lies just out of our comfort or understanding.

Often what is unknown is also what brings about questions of our own power and what we can or cannot control. In my work, I address ideas of power and powerlessness formally through what the figures lack. Their control …