Arts and Humanities Commons^™

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 …

Short Stories, Tall Tales, Chance Lure Allen

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

It is often said that the truth should never get in the way of a good story. I use painting and drawing to override truth, open a door to imagined lives, reflect on the past from a new perspective, and look to the future from my current perspective. Thedrawings and paintings in this exhibitioncombine elements of personal history, historical art references, popular culture, and music, drawing heavily from American iconography. I use the format of the still life to create idiosyncratic parings of objects and images documenting memories of growing up in Missouri. Some of the images are short stories. …

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 …

The Use Of Egyptian Blue In Funerary Paintings From Roman Egypt, Margaret Sather

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

This paper explores the use of the synthesized pigment Egyptian blue in the encaustic and tempera funerary portraits of Graeco-Roman ruled Egypt in the 1st-3rd centuries CE. Recent developments in non-destructive imaging analysis technology have aided research institutions and museums in detecting the presence of this pigment. New questions have arisen based on these findings of Egyptian blue in the depiction of flesh and hair of these subjects, particularly because blue is so rarely used as a standalone pigment in works of this category. These analyses have challenged assumptions that Egyptian blue was a rare and valuable pigment during the …

Take Your Time, Terry A. Ratzlaff

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

I see the world not as one seamless world but as a world composed of other worlds, built on top and within one another. They exist harmoniously, bound not by space but by time. In an instant I can move from one world into another where I can exist in two worlds simultaneously—in space, I am here. In time, I am there.

Worldmaking is a conceptual process of seeing connections and making distinctions within our lived reality.1 It is a process of dividing and organizing parts into collections that represent different narratives. Only through suitable arrangements can we handle vast …

Slowly But Surely, Katie Bosley

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

I craft porcelain vessels that combine dynamic forms and dimensional surfaces to create a captivating presence. Formal components such as line, space, and color are carefully considered to create objects that are striking at first glance and reward further inspection. Constructed with an emphasis on structure, these works challenge conventional interpretations of the vessel and promote a sense of awe.

My vessels are relational objects that both affect and are affected by their surroundings. Employing positive and negative space, and light and shadow, they collaborate with the space they inhabit. They are objects designed to promote and reward active viewing. …

Things Change, Julia Leggent

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

The paintings in Things Change are pieces of my life; they follow my routines, thoughts, and worries, but these topics are experienced by many. The images of flesh, knobs, and pills are painted at life scale and are meant to be widely relatable. With each of my works, I hope to bring awareness to social, political, and feminine themes while drawing the viewer in and inciting interest in the ever-changing visual aspects of everyday life.

Examining routine, ritual, and time is always fascinating to me; I work to show this through my paintings. Practices change throughout the years. Strangely, you …