Arts and Humanities Commons^™

4:44, Matthew Meyer

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

As a multimedia artist, I create using practices of painting, photography, drawing, sculpture, and digital methods. The conceptual basis of my work explores the specific relationship between material, process, and idea. 4:44, the title of my thesis exhibition, refers to Jay-Z’s 2017 critically acclaimed album. This album has a lot of influential moments within it; however, one song embodied the ideas that I was researching while at the University of Nebraska Lincoln. “The Story of O.J.” contains different aspects of Blackness, whether how we treat each other, think about the future or just the different skin tones within the …

Softly And Tenderly Calling, Jewelya Coffey

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

Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling,

Calling for you and for me;

See, on the portals He’s waiting and watching,

Watching for you and for me.

Come home, come home,

You who are weary, come home;

Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling,

Calling, O sinner, come home!

Why should we tarry when Jesus is pleading,

Pleading for you and for me?

Why should we linger and heed not His mercies,

Mercies for you and for me?

Time is now fleeting, the moments are passing,

Passing from you and from me;

Shadows are gathering, deathbeds are coming,

Coming for you and for …

Permutations, Casey Beck

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

I make pottery not only out of a passion for my material, clay, and for the complex processes of wheel throwing and atmospheric firing, but also out of a passion for living with, using, and sharing handmade objects. For me, using pottery daily is an act of celebration. My philosophy of making pots comes in part from the particular history of utilitarian pottery that has developed over the last sixty years in Minnesota and Western Wisconsin, where I went to school and began my career as a potter. More recently, the form language that I employ in my work has …

Or To Be Eaten Alive, Christopher Williams

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

“or to be eaten alive'' is a multimedia exhibition in which I merge my own coming of age story with a mythological ecology. In this work I reclaim my queer identity by communing with my past selves in a fantasy world created through the lens of Queer Ecology and Queer Eco-Futurism. The visuals in this exhibition obscure reality. They are abstractions of the landscapes I occupy—particularly the Tallgrass prairie and Ozark ecoregions. Through a speculative, fantasy world the exhibition introduces moments of adoration, death, fracturing, growth, joy, and failure. I form, draw, color and arrange the work embracing mistakes and …

In This Time And Place, Christy Aggens

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

I seek out and spend time in relatively wild outdoor locations and create art based on my observations. The resulting work explores time and place, while the creation of the work increases my engagement with the environment. This process serves as a reminder that time is relative and life itself is continuous.

I start by finding time in locations where nature has been given a chance to thrive and where the sound of human activity is at a minimum. During these retreats, I use my senses to absorb information and document the experience by journaling, making recordings, taking photographs, drawing, …

Is It Gonna Be Fun?, Kim Tomlinson

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

I am a multidisciplinary artist working across digital and analog forms of printmaking, installation, playing, drawing, and writing. I incorporate elements of humor, autobiography, and nostalgic pop culture references to tell stories and facilitate connections.

At the heart of my work is the desire to be seen and feel connected. This starts with self reflection and building a personal archive of important references and symbols. Through recurring characters rooted in personal and historical pop culture references, I incorporate layers of complexity and inside jokes into the work. Humor is an essential tool to maintain levity, engage participants, and challenge traditional …

Spit Brimming With Futures, Penny Molesso

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

SPIT BRIMMING WITH FUTURES is an immersive video and audio installation that uses ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) to investigate the intersection of transgender and neurodivergent identity, expressing an urgent need to imagine stories about transgender, autistic people that affirm our agency and autonomy amidst a political climate that weaponizes neurodivergence to delegitimize trans experiences. The American political right’s vilification of transgender people is used to uphold structures of white supremacy and heteropatriarchy that become destabilized when rigid binary gender categories are challenged. The political right has a vested interest in keeping trans people out of public view, thus weaponizing …

Silhouette, Andy Bissonnette

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

As a potter, I am deeply interested in the union between form, surface, and function. I believe these elements are intrinsically connected and the most successful pots are able to balance all three in a way that is both aesthetically pleasing and practical. From the proportional relationship between the foot and rim, to the way a glaze breaks or pools across an articulated surface, each detail is crafted with intention and care. Silhouette is a metaphor for how I conceptualize and conceive each of my pieces. It’s a way to explore form through both an aesthetic and practical approach. My …

The Midwestern Aristocracy: Anders Zorn's Portraits In Gilded Age St. Louis, Rebekah Hoke Brown

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

To the American aristocracy of the Gilded Age, painted portraits functioned as pictorial symbols of one’s taste, power, and status. This thesis evaluates the motivations of a provincial elite in St. Louis, Missouri, and sees their taste for portraits by Swedish artist, Anders Zorn, as the result of the intersection of myriad cultural and ethnic allegiances. Situating Zorn as a trans-Atlantic artist, this thesis functions as a patronage study, evaluating the portraits and goals of specific St. Louis patrons and analyzes Zorn’s role as an active agent in the art market, leveraging his public persona to establish aesthetic authority over …

Spectacle In The Roman Imperial Funeral Procession, William Smith

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

From the legendary foresight of Augustus, to the scandalous escapades of Nero and Commodus to even the philosopher emperor, Marcus Aurelius, much has been written. This thesis does not concern itself with the deeds of emperors, but rather their funerals. Imperial funerals in some ways were quite similar to their Republican era antecedents. They differed in spectacular ways. This thesis investigates the spectacle evident in imperial funerals and argues that their inclusion is not to honor the deceased but rather cement their place in the cultural memory of Rome by means of this performance. In addition, it examines the role …

Magic Mirrors, Jamie Ho

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

When a beam of bright light hits the convex and polished surface, an image is reflected back onto the wall. This is a description of a magic mirror, an object from the Han Dynasty (206 BC -24 AD), that embodies how Euro-America views China: both technically advanced and shrouded in mystery. The magic mirror also points to the history of photography, as this term was often used in the Victorian era to describe a camera. The image created by a camera is a mimic of reality, both all too familiar and unfamiliar.^[1] Like magic mirrors, the GIFs I create …

Qualia, Maxwell Henderson

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

In this thesis, I examine the transformative potential of pottery through the lens of "qualia," the subjective experiences, emotions, and perceptions that shape our conscious lives. Stemming from my personal journey, which includes a childhood of poverty in Arizona and a biracial identity, I advocate for inclusivity and diversity in art and society by challenging material hierarchies and conventional artistic practices.

I delve into the vibrant aesthetics of Japanese Kutani porcelain, the fluidity and balance in ceramic vessels, and the impact of my background on my artistic approach. My experiences foster a rejection of painterly language and arbitrary hierarchies, prompting …

Am I Another You?, Laura Diane Cobb

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

On my birth certificate are the names of my parents, though the name of my father stands in opposition to my genealogy. The script of his signature conceals my birth as donor conceived (DC). The truth of my origin would lay dormant for years behind his scrawl, burying my true heritage beneath the stories of my social father’s ancestry.

Learning the truth, I began to reevaluate my identity. Searching for myself along waterways, I explored the shores of the Platte River as if by knowing its sandbars, flora, and fauna, I would come to know myself. In searching the land, …

All I Am, All I Am Not, Courtney Kuehn

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

“If the whole universe can be found in our own body and mind, this is where we need to make our inquires.” -Ayya Khema

The physical making of drawing is a meditative way of coping with the struggles I am facing as well as a way of self-discovery. I have always felt this severe indifference about myself that has forced an unhealthy view of my body. Drawing my body makes me view myself differently and forces me to really confront the innate and learned shameful view I have of myself both physically and mentally. I do not think I know …

Qualia, Maxwell Henderson

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

As an artist, my work is a conduit for the exploration of "qualia" – the personal, deeply subjective experiences, emotions, and perceptions that shape our conscious lives. My artistic journey, born from a childhood in Arizona poverty and my biracial identity, has ignited a passion for inclusivity and diversity in art and society, guiding me to challenge traditional material hierarchies and conventional artistic norms.

My art interweaves the vivid aesthetics of Japanese Kutani porcelain and the natural, raw beauty of Icelandic landscapes with the fluidity and balance found in ceramic vessels. Through this fusion, I strive to redefine the role …

Bound By Matter, Carlie Antes

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

I view most aspects of life as being made up of tiny particles of matter that come together and synthesize to shape both our individual and collective human existence. Delicate threads are intricately woven together forming textiles and fabric. Tiny cellular particles shape all living species. Devices of human invention are mapped and constructed to aid in making sense of situations and surroundings. An accumulation of day-to-day moments coalesce to form complex memories and emotions. Each of these compositions are comprised of physical and/or emotional matter. This body of work utilizes the physical matter of my own lived experiences to …

Why Sweep The Cinders…, Gretchen Larsen

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

In my creative practice I climb down the ladder, put the glass slipper on my own foot, and build the ball for myself (and everyone I know, of course). What I mean is, instead of waiting for the prince and his kingdom to come, I have learned to pursue my own dreams. I do this by dreaming up and building objects using a mixture of traditional and new media. I work with wood, acrylic, LEDs, microcontrollers, lamp parts, and other materials including fabric and projectors. I create, live with, and create again, objects of my own design. The objects I …

Until Morning, Asher Berard

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

Until Morning is an installation-based body of work that is rooted in fantasy through storytelling. It’s focused on a narrative about processing trauma through the self at their various stages of recovery. This exhibition consists of paintings, sculptures, audio, and videos reflecting a world built to regain authorship over unsettling memories that demand closure. The films are performative extensions of self in familiar southern Louisiana landscapes. The viewer shares perspective through the point of view of Memory, the main character depicted with pink hair. The fictional scenes all toy with notions of remembering, forgetting, and coping, while also provoking reactions …

Brick Collage, Dehmie Dehmlow

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

bricolage: construction or creation from a diverse range of available things

I create abstracted modular sculptures, assemblages, and collages that playfully reference utility, using salvaged materials and carefully fabricated objects. My sculptures are considerately composed, elevating the materials with a determined focus on how each disparate part connects to the next to become a meaningful whole. I have a reverence for all of the objects and materials I use, no matter their origin, and thoroughly consider how each of their forms, textures, colors, weights and other formal and physical qualities integrate into a whole. With the use of recognizable utilitarian …

Me Tengo Que Ir, Eddy Leonel Aldana

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

In Spanish, me tengo que ir means “I have to go.” “I have to go” as in go home, or back to one’s home country. As in leaving home for the unforeseeable future, hang up the phone, or pass away. me tengo que ir is also the name of a song by Adolescent’s Orquesta — a song about love, loss, and heartbreak over time that was always played at family parties when I was growing up.

In me tengo que ir, I use world history and personal memory to examine my family’s place within the Guatemalan diaspora. Diaspora is …

A Natural History (Built To Be Seen), Austin Cullen, Austin Wray Cullen

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

A Natural History (Built to be Seen) is a series of photographic observations of the spectacular and absurd ways the western natural world is presented in museums. The subjects of the photographs include displays from both the front-facing, visitor side of the museum, and the back, research-focused side of the museum. As someone who grew up visiting natural history museums, I've always been fascinated by the extravagant ways they framed the American landscape. Dramatic dioramas, interactive virtual experiences, and miniaturized landscapes all act as windows into the natural world. While this framing provides a guide for reading and understanding nature, …

I Want To Go Home, Amber Boris

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

The significance of a home lies within the memories of the space. I Want to Go Home is a body of work that explores this idea through a collection of sculptures and drawings depicting my childhood home. This house holds meaning to me not only because it is where I grew up, but because it was also my mother’s childhood home. Six generations of our family have passed through the house, creating a long history of associated stories, memories, and emotions.

I have constructed scaled down sculptures of rooms for these memories to live in. The spaces are left empty, …

Salt In Our Bones, Hannah Demma

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

In my studio I lead a rich fantasy life. I am excited and enchanted by the interplay of color, pattern, and texture in a variety of mediums — but always involving paper, most often, paper I’ve handmade. I look to the natural world for inspiration in my work. Approaching the work as a scientist or naturalist might, I observe, hypothesize, and run experiments. Then I interpret and process my findings. I consider creative play and intuitive investigation into materials hallmarks of my practice.

When I watch documentaries about sea life, or read about the discoveries of marine scientists, I feel …

The Ghosts Shed Tears, Sarah Jentsch

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

Before I was taught what made us different, I thought my brother and I were the same. The only difference between a doe and a buck was the antlers. As I grew, I noticed differences—in the way people spoke to us, in what was expected of us, in the questions we were asked. In what our futures were supposed to look like. The difference between the doe and the buck was still the antlers, but those antlers made one a trophy and the other venison.

Many of my formative experiences I came to understand through animals. My family home, cradled …

It Won’T Be Easy, Allison Arkush

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

Interdisciplinary artist Allison Arkush engages a wide range of materials, modalities, and research in her practice. In It Won’t Be Easy, Arkush places and piles her multimedia sculptures throughout the gallery to create installations that overlap ­with her writing and poetry, sometimes layering in (or extending out to) audio and video components. This approach facilitates the probing exploration of prevailing value systems through a flattening of hierarchies among and between humans, the other-than-human, and the inanimate—though no less lively. Her work meditates on and ‘vendiagrams’ things forsaken and sacred, the traumatic and nostalgic. The exhibition title acknowledges that the …

Idylls, Madison Aunger

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

An “Idyll” is defined as a happy, peaceful, or picturesque scene. The term references poetry that describes a small intimate world, and scenes from everyday life.

This exhibition, Idylls, showcases the little world of my home here in Lincoln, Nebraska. The paintings mirror my experience of the domestic spaces in my life, and the peaceful moments I encounter. In Idylls you are encouraged to be idle. We do ourselves a disservice when we don’t take the time to slow down.

My work begins as an excitement about a specific formal quality, a shape of light, a hint of color, repetition …

Growth, Taylor Sijan

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

I craft functional pottery that is richly decorated with layers of abstracted botanical imagery. While working within the parameters of function, I explore the possibilities for expressing and evoking beauty through altered porcelain forms and lush surfaces. As a potter, I create forms that inspire curiosity and interaction through a balance of originality and suggested function. I connect myself to others through the intermediary of the vessel, conveying my reverence for plants, nourishment and beauty. People then interpret how to use my work, adding their own sentiments as it becomes part of their lives. Pots live in the home, bridging …

Devastation Experienced When Two Individuals Stop Kissing One Another, Isaiah Jones

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

The work in Devastation Experienced When Two Individuals Stop Kissing One Another is an excavation of the private self in relation to love and desire and an exploration of the chaos that ensues in their passage. Desire describes a state of attachment to a person, an object, or an idea. It produces a cloud of optimism between that which is desired and she who is full of desire . It presses against need, the obsessive 1 phenomena of all amorous sentiment, and in its dissolution, total devastation ensues2. With this work, I explore my own desires, observations, uncertainty, and anger, …

Tomorrow Is The Worst Day Since Yesterday, Matthew Carlson

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

Susan Sontag wrote: “Illness is the night-side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we prefer to use only the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other space”.

This work addresses aspects of that citizenship. I used my experiences as a person living with a disability and as a parent to a son with Autism to explore the dichotomy of this dual citizenship. The …

The Weight Of It All, Amythest Warrington

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

The impetus for this exhibition is to visualize the weight of loss and to focus attention on the need to recognize the inherent dichotomy between life’s beauty and loss. My mobile upbringing taught me that details may differ from group to group, but the core experiences of loss, empathy and belonging are a universal language that connects us. I utilize clay’s unique physical properties of malleability, recyclability and permanence once fired, to explore the dichotomy between strength and frailty associated with these universal connectors. The meticulously crafted beautiful objects draw one into serious and often taboo subjects. The work comforts …