Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Hero Baby, Elizabeth J. Harney

Theses and Dissertations

With fiction and theory, the following pages give context to my most recent body of work called Hero Baby. The work in Hero Baby embodies an aesthetic of cuteness, as highlights the relationship between: aggression and protection, power and submission, war and commodity, nationalism and desire for love.

^A Weather Of Her Wake—Should Something Be Missing?, Chip Chapin

Theses and Dissertations

Conciliating an economics of care, support, and desire through the languages of state control, commodity, and shared resources ^A Weather of Her Wake confronts unspoken exchanges endemic to relationships in capitalist society, choreographing relationships that invites both performer and audience to negotiate architectures charged with intimate memory.

The Body. The Art. The Psyche, Anushtha Agrawal

Capstones

The Body. The Art. The Psyche is a series that delves into the psyche behind doing body art. What drives an artist to manipulate another's body whether permanently or impermanently. What drives them? What they gain out of it? What are they seeking? The series has two artists; A tattoo artist who is driven by the demons of the human mind and macabre things around him; another is a henna artist who is driven by the mystical properties of henna and is inspired by the celebration of life. I have tried to draw a contrast between permanence and impermanence in …

Disability Artistry Is Not Outsider Art, Hiram A. Durán

Capstones

"Disability Artistry is Not Outsider Art" explores the obstacles artists with disabilities face in trying to go mainstream.

https://hiram-alejandro-duran.format.com/capstone

To See Again: Vision And Revelation In American Poetics, Emily C. Raabe

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

With this project, I am arguing for a particularly American visual poetics that dwells in the state of suspension implied by attention, quivering between wonder and contemplation, immobility and unfixity as it seeks to reveal, as Maurice Merleau-Ponty writes in his 1945 The Phenomenology of Perception, the world which is “always ‘already there’ before reflection begins — as an inalienable presence.”^[1] Grounded in visual theory, the project pairs poets and artists, searching not for similitude, but rather examining resemblance, difference, and most important, relation. Susan Howe, one of my guides for this project, writes that, “immense perspectives …

Getting Located: Queer Semiotics In Dress, Callen Zimmerman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The body, a long contested site of identity construction, has been used by historically by queers to convey desire, build affinity and transgress norms. Looking at the fashioned queer body, this capstone takes the form of a proposal for an art exhibition at the Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art. Seeking to engage with objects, performance and film which approximate, provide proxy for or depart from the body as a site, it explores the social and political quagmire of getting dressed. Comprised of contemporary art that looks at the rupture of legible bodily semiotics, this show wonders what …

All The Small Things, Talia E. Levitt

Theses and Dissertations

My paintings engage with the history of the still life as a marginalized and antiacademic genre. Rather than fool viewers into believing that there are real objects in front of them, as is the historical intention of trompe l’oeil, I use realistic rendering to emphasize the painting and painter.

To The Peaches, Jazmine Hayes

Theses and Dissertations

My work focuses on erased histories and the ways these histories are preserved through cultural traditions. I explore histories across the African diaspora with specificity on African American culture and black female subjectivity.

Monsters And Mayhem And Laughter, Staver Klitgaard

Theses and Dissertations

Being an image-maker was always going to be a part of my life. As a child, I had a speech impediment and in order to communicate with my parents, I would use drawings I created to let them know what I was feeling or trying to say. Image making saved me again when I grew older; I was not a star student. But, when I was in art class, I felt like I suddenly could breathe. The minute I realized there was something I could master and have a handle on—a place of creating, learning the history of other artists—I …

Needle And Thread, Caitlin Carvalho

Theses and Dissertations

Needle and Thread is an expanded cinema performance that involves the projection of 16mm film, archival footage, video, 35mm slide projection, soundscape and liquid light projection. It explores the fibers of connection, the thread that ties together my matriarchy, utilizing the language of cinema to piece together the memories.

Through The Looking Glass: Marie Antoinette, The Mafia And The Buddha, Craig G. Foisy

Theses and Dissertations

Through the Looking Glass: Marie Antoinette, the Mafia & the Buddhais a short documentary film that recounts six chapters from the autobiography of Marie Antoinette. No, not that last Queen of France who got her head chopped off. This Marie Antoinette lives in Woodstock, NY (“but I do like cake!” says Marie from inside her shop). And yes, Marie Antoinette is her real name. She is 78 years old and she sells what she calls “wearable art” out of a ramshackle and overstuffed boutique in town. Marie is facing the possible closure of her shop: her 100-year-old …

The Dream Of Being Totally Open, Frederick Greis

Theses and Dissertations

This essay details four major themes in the paintings of Frederick Greis: spiritual experience, nature, pleasure, and humor. These themes are described within the context of the artist's main goal, which is to create an experience of profound unburdening.

The Relationship To Architecture Is Not Insignificant, Rachel Hillery

Theses and Dissertations

Working with writing, psychology, photography, and architecture, I develop texts that are performed with custom-built furniture and objects in unexpected spatial conditions. The paper traces the development of my writing and performance and my explorations of power and gender dynamics.

Work And Work, Rebecca M. Baldwin

Theses and Dissertations

work and Work chart tracks my work/job and my Work/art to see how one can change the other.

Clear And Complex, Tian Tan

Theses and Dissertations

China’s president has made constitutional amendment through parliament voting, which means he could remain in office indefinitely. I tried to find out what was going on. All the keywords on the topic were marked as sensitive, in order to prevent people from searching and posting about it.

Kiddush Levana, The Moon Is Your Handheld Mirror, Noa Ginzburg

Theses and Dissertations

Noa Ginzburg is weaving cast-off and hand-made objects, lights, reflections, spells, drawings, and an abundance of knots into site-responsive installations. In her thesis, Ginzburg addresses Hieronymus Bosch’s paintings, the synergy of assemblages, repurposing of materials in the era of Anthropocene, and how notions of solidarity and indeterminacy influence her work.

Getting Dressed And Being Dressed: A Constructed Autobiography Of Identity, Jana Jarosz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This written and visual capstone project examines how feminist theories surrounding the construction of a gendered subject are related and situational to the narrative of a lived body experience within a layered context of clothing. It opens up a discussion concerning the negotiated space between an individually-empowered, subject-in-process and the boundaries of social expectations outlining gender and cultural identities. The thesis introduces the concept of using an automediality framework to connect the material culture of clothing to still and motion imagery with text as a way to encapsulate and illustrate the fluid nature of becoming. It concludes by suggesting that …

Cultural Heritage Preservation In The Context Of Climate Change Adaptation Or Relocation: Barbuda As A Case Study, Martha B. Lerski

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This case study introduces an arts camp methodology of engaging communities in identifying their key cultural heritage features, thus serving as a meta study. It presents original research based on field studies on the climate-vulnerable Caribbean island of Barbuda during 2017 and 2018. Its Valued Cultural Elements survey, enabling precise identification of key tangible and intangible art forms and biocultural practices, may serve as a basis for further studies. Such approaches may facilitate future research or planning as climate-vulnerable communities harness Local or Indigenous Knowledge for purposes of biocultural heritage preservation, or towards adaptation or relocation. I report on findings …

Into The Glitch, Natalie Birinyi

Theses and Dissertations

My work uses Google Earth to generate imagery which is then faithfully observed and reproduced in oil paint. I sneak inside skyscrapers, paragons of capitalistic power, and trick Google Earth into showing me the unrendered innards. Buildings break down into glorious shards of abstract shapes and lines that gesture toward structure, turning a tower into a portal. In this paper I discuss surveillance, the cultural meaning of skyscrapers, cyborgs, drone perspective, painting from observation, science fiction, and the future.

Behind Closet Doors: Horror And Dislocation In The Queer Closet, Corey C. Allen

Theses and Dissertations

“Behind Closet Doors: Horror and Dislocation in the Queer Closet,” is composed of a collection of sculptures, videos, and sound works that are directly associated with themes of horror and anxiety derived from the precarious space of the queer closet as detailed in this thesis of the same name.

Big Sister Enterprise: Just Be There, Wai Ying Zhao

Theses and Dissertations

Wai Ying Zhao, an artist and curator, instituted an American company named Big Sister Enterprise in 2018. BSE is a Delaware registered LLC that imitates briefcase companies implemented in order to foster a community of emerging artists with the intent of exhibiting and promoting their works. Zhao’s initiative stems from the awareness that many artists are struggling to continue their studio practices because of unstable income or being overworked in jobs such as art handling, gallery sitting and bartending. Through openings and events held in spaces in both New York and Shenzhen, she aims to create a community where emerging …

Constraint And Control, Patricia Ayres

Theses and Dissertations

I have long considered themes of the body. Drawing on my knowledge as a fashion designer, I bring materials and hardware from the fashion industry into my artwork transforming and rendering them non-functional. My sculptures relate to stories of isolation, separation, and confinement. The following pages will analyze how the United States penal system controls, constrains and restricts the body through physical and psychological wounds. Furthermore, they will examine how the Catholic Church controls people’s minds and behavior through a ritualistic belief system.

North American Data, Joseph A. Burwell

Theses and Dissertations

North American Data fractures and reconfigures pre-existing narratives into new, unauthorized forms of storytelling. Core samples extracted from various narrative sources are reassigned new roles according to their proximity to each other. This paper functions as an introduction to the essential actors and their dramatic inclinations within fluctuating scenarios.

Generative Movements, Cabbage Juice, & Habitats Of Selfhood, Jason Michael Rondinelli

Theses and Dissertations

The content of this essay is a reflection on my practice as an artist. A summary of text includes an analysis of my attraction to certain materials such as drywall, cabbage juice and coconut oil, all materials are the extensions of my memory, intention and pleasure. From warm memories of bathhouses and the flesh of others to managing illness at home, my artwork distills a lived experience into material reality. These materials take the shape of sculptural networks that serve as biographical biomes. The architectural and organic components of the work are sourced from my own experience and the surreal …

Pass Away, Jessica Li

Theses and Dissertations

This project is about a familial history and takes the form of a sculptural installation. How do you pack to go to a place you know nothing about? Bags enable mobility by providing a sense of home in unfamiliar terrain. What is carried on a trip to the grocery store? To California? To the other side of the world? To the moon? Into the afterlife? What choices are made out of necessity versus what is carried out of desire or fear?

Writing About Art, Ana Marjanovic

Open Educational Resources

The course focuses on practice in the styles and forms of expository writing required in the arts. It recommends the readings that acquaint students with standards of good writing about the arts.

Dress Up, Ye'ela B. Wilschanski

Theses and Dissertations

Dress Up (Performance, 40 minutes) is a dress that functions as a floor, blanket, tablecloth, book and walls. It tells a visual story about domestic care giving rituals, referencing different times and places.

My Painting, Brian Byun

Theses and Dissertations

When the painting is done, it begins to ask me “Who are you?” and “What am I?” This ongoing conversation has fascinated me in making these paintings over the last several months and I’m hoping the viewer will have a similar experience.

The Social Role Of The Artist, Gabino A. Castelan

Theses and Dissertations

Gabino A. Castelán, tells a personal story of loss that influenced his artistic practice. He embraced this narrative to create two projects “Practice of Everyday Life-205 (PoEL-205) and the formation of a temporary collective called, Cultural Workers. He presents two case studies of twenty-first century artists, whose projects have business models that allow them to function in social roles during political and social turmoil. "Conflict Kitchen" and "Rebuild Foundation" provide context about running for-profit and not-for-profit artistic practices. Castelan writes about these projects' influencing his artistic practice in general.

Archaeology Of Social Patterning, Chase Bray

Theses and Dissertations

The episteme that created the grid as a structure for logic has been usurped. We compose meaning from an adulterated grid, or pattern. I process meaning through the abuse of acrid patterns and the grid, the reduction of imagery to silhouettes and by referencing both cultural and classical mythology.