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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

A Third Culture Kid's Quest For Belonging: Ephemeral, Eternal, And The Space In Between, Simona Darshani Wiig Jan 2021

A Third Culture Kid's Quest For Belonging: Ephemeral, Eternal, And The Space In Between, Simona Darshani Wiig

Honors Undergraduate Theses

In fulfillment of my degree of Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Central Florida specializing in sculpture and ceramics, I have produced a body of artwork in a range of media, including printmaking, bookbinding, painting, ceramics, and sculpture. This thesis is the exegesis of my creative work, informed by contemporary artworks and the study of shelter-making in nature. Utilizing The Practitioner Model of Creative Cognition as defined by R. Lyle Skains, I will establish my work as practice-based research. While "exegesis" generally refers to the critical examination of written work, I feel it is appropriate in this context …


Artful Bionics: Pushing The Limits Of Visual Expression In Prosthetic Design, Anna Kester Jan 2019

Artful Bionics: Pushing The Limits Of Visual Expression In Prosthetic Design, Anna Kester

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Traditional prosthetic design revolves around functionality, aiming to hide and downplay an individual's limb difference as much as possible. This may not only negatively affect the user's desire to wear their prosthetic but may also negatively affect their self-confidence and sense of identity. Expression is a primary way to communicate identity, yet some traditional prosthetics may deny expression, leaving users without an immediate means to express themselves apart from the stigmatizing label of 'disability'. This study examines the ability of art when combined with bionic prosthetic technology to change the perception of disability, empower self confidence in prosthetics users, and …


Slough: Revealing The Animal, Clay Dunklin Jan 2016

Slough: Revealing The Animal, Clay Dunklin

Honors Undergraduate Theses

When making my work I constantly reflect on past mythologies, images, and objects. These served people as a way to make sense of and understand the dynamics of the world around them. As we continue to alter and shape the world into one designed for exclusively human benefit, we need new models that reveal the dynamics of our relationship to the world around us. This is what artists have been doing for centuries, and I specifically look to those using animals and animal imagery in their work to further mythologize our contemporary understanding of the human-other animal relationship. My body …


Lonely Monsters, Patricia Davis Jan 2015

Lonely Monsters, Patricia Davis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Lonely Monsters is a full-length feature screenplay that explores the ways in which a classic damsel narrative may be reconsidered. It offers ideas on how death and girlhood may find symmetry. The characters within Lonely Monsters deal with loss, identity of the self versus the world's ideas on self-identity, place, gender, and class. Utilizing the elements of a fairy tale, the narrative seeks to complicate the roles of gender in a cautionary tale. Set in the fictional Florida town of Puerto Palmera, an economic divide between the Estates and the Glades makes for a ripe, troublesome environment for a foul …


Concrete Painting, Stephanie Cafcules Jan 2014

Concrete Painting, Stephanie Cafcules

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the evolution of my artwork with synthetic materials through influences of the Minimalist and Process Artists of the 1960's and 1970's, inspiration from natural forms, and my exploration of concrete painting. Each work reveals discoveries of different processes and materials, accelerating the creation of new works. It is my hope this thesis will inform viewers about the process and concepts that my work embodies.


Doubting Thomas: The Testaments, Ivan Riascos Jan 2014

Doubting Thomas: The Testaments, Ivan Riascos

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper will discuss the creation of my artwork, which has been inspired by my experiences and understandings of Catholicism and its icons. I will consider how iconography works in art, its influence, and how and why I have created this artwork dealing with my beliefs. I will also refer to the works of contemporary artists Duane Michals and Michael Wesely to help explain my exhibition, which I have titled "Doubting Thomas: The Testaments."


Keren, Shelly Bradon Jan 2014

Keren, Shelly Bradon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The intent of this thesis is to recognize the everyday victories of a child living with physical disabilities. This complicated subject matter has forced the exploration of a variety of media to successfully communicate the story; drawing, painting, china painting, altered books and sculpture have all become part of the process. At the age of 8 months the subject, Keren Hernandez, was diagnosed with Bilateral Closed- lip Schizencephaly, a rare disorder that inhibits development. Since the diagnosis seven years ago her family has struggled to overcome these challenges, committing to avail themselves to every resource possible. I began painting and …


Together, Science And Art Can Provide Answers In Search For Truth, Carla Poindexter Mar 2013

Together, Science And Art Can Provide Answers In Search For Truth, Carla Poindexter

UCF Forum

As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of UCF this year, we are reminded that the core benefit of an upper-level education is the opportunity to pursue and obtain insight and knowledge over blindness and ignorance.


Transient Motel, Bryce Hammond Jan 2013

Transient Motel, Bryce Hammond

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

"Transient Motel" is an exhibition that investigates the interactions of people and physical environments in low-income areas of Daytona Beach, Florida. The purpose of the exhibition is to raise social awareness of low-income communities among the public through visual art. Interactions between motel guests were documented as first-hand sound recordings of conversations, interviews and other activities. These recordings are projected through speakers within a constructed life-sized replica of the motel rooms in which they were recorded. Found and appropriated furniture and fixtures from the actual rooms are arranged within the replica as objects of art to familiarize the public with …


The Cinematic Experience Through The Micro-Budget Paradigm, Jeffrey Lehman Jan 2013

The Cinematic Experience Through The Micro-Budget Paradigm, Jeffrey Lehman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Tailor’s Apprentice is a feature-length, micro-budget, narrative digital motion picture, written, produced and directed by Jeffrey Lehman in partial fulfillment of the requirements of earning a Master of Fine Arts in Film from the University of Central Florida. The film is a result of applying specific monetary, logistical and creative limitations to the production process in order to contribute in defining the micro-budget aesthetic, resulting in a final shared cinematic audience experience. This thesis is a record of all stages from conception to completion of the executed, feature length film with-in the micro-budget production paradigm.


Living Between Two Worlds: Conflict, Investigation And The Change, Noura Abdulhameed Shuqair Jan 2013

Living Between Two Worlds: Conflict, Investigation And The Change, Noura Abdulhameed Shuqair

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Beginning with my exploration of art as an aesthetic object, this paper shows the growth of my work and concept. Through my practice, I have been able to understand the contradictions in my traditional society and western modernity. It has helped me grapple with my own beliefs, and begin to confront those I don't agree with.


Humanities, Sciences Must Be United -- For Our Collective Success, Carla Poindexter Nov 2012

Humanities, Sciences Must Be United -- For Our Collective Success, Carla Poindexter

UCF Forum

When Pablo Picasso presented his first cubist paintings to the world, even most educated people thought them hideous and irrational, yet his peers saw them to be ingenious.


Can We Own Art? Or Just Be Its Legal Guardian?, Carla Poindexter Sep 2012

Can We Own Art? Or Just Be Its Legal Guardian?, Carla Poindexter

UCF Forum

How can we effectively teach students to be professional artists at a time when some of society’s economic values are so unrealistic? It is true the high-end art market is thriving, but the contemporary art community is arguing whether such outrageous public auctions and private sales are good or bad for art.


Art Is Always A Series Of Questions To Contemplate, Not Solve, Carla Poindexter Jul 2012

Art Is Always A Series Of Questions To Contemplate, Not Solve, Carla Poindexter

UCF Forum

Why do people value a painting or drawing? An elementary-school student I know recently answered: “Because when we look at art we can see how the artist felt about things.”


A Crack In Everything, Jeffrey Hoffman Jan 2012

A Crack In Everything, Jeffrey Hoffman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Contained herein is a close examination of self-awareness and self-portraiture as it applies to the works of artist Jeffrey Hoffman. Water, frozen into various forms and combined with natural elements of wood, slowly melt over an indeterminable amount of time, each droplet documented as the process transforms the elements. Through this process, we see change. We see time. We see truth. This documentation of change and time through natural elements is where the artwork comes full circle. Working with new media to explore man's interconnectivity to life, energy, and the cosmos, he produces time based installations, photographs, videos, and sculptures …


The Immaculate Condemnation, Corey Robertson Jan 2012

The Immaculate Condemnation, Corey Robertson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My work is a continuously evolving self portrait formulated by a combination of past experiences and influences. The Immaculate Condemnation body of work is a cathartic reaction that confronts Catholic Sin and rebels against gender conformity. As both a confirmed Catholic and transgender woman, I speak from an authentic voice that seeks open conversation regarding these topics. I also hope to demystify the transsexual body for the non-transgendered viewer. Additionally, I use allegoric imagery to communicate my interpretation of beauty, power, horror, and sex. I combine performance, photography, sculpture, video, audio, and graphic design to execute my installations. I intentionally …


But This Is What I See; This Is What I See: Re-Imagining Gendered Subjectivity Through The Woman Artist In Phelps, Johnstone, And Woolf, Heather Wayne Jan 2010

But This Is What I See; This Is What I See: Re-Imagining Gendered Subjectivity Through The Woman Artist In Phelps, Johnstone, And Woolf, Heather Wayne

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Since the publication of Laura Mulvey's influential article 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,' in which she identifies the pervasive presence of the male gaze in Hollywood cinema, scholars have sought to account for the female spectator in her paradigm of gendered vision. This thesis suggests that women writers have long debated the problem of the female spectator through literary depictions of the female artist. Women writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries'including Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Edith Johnstone, and Virginia Woolf'recognized the power of the woman artist to undermine the trope of the male gazing subject and a passive female object. …


Place, Space, And Form Captured Through Photographic Meditation, Sarah Stead Jan 2010

Place, Space, And Form Captured Through Photographic Meditation, Sarah Stead

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Inspired by Buddhist philosophy, the photographic series Architectural Zen attempts to beautify banal and pragmatic architecture through limiting and preexisting artificial light conditions. The selective illumination of artificial light eliminates the non-essential details and enhances the pure forms and saturated color presented by the camera lens. This encourages the photographer and the viewer to enter a state of meditation. The resulting process is similar to a Zen approach to image making. The ancient Zen artist's compositions are strengthened by a meditation on form and subsequent elimination of the non-essential elements of the subject. Through embracing this Zen mentality and mindfulness,aspects …


Fuzzy Robots: Utopian Ideals, The Immortalization Of Youth, And The Innocence Of Childhood., Elizabeth Caps Jan 2009

Fuzzy Robots: Utopian Ideals, The Immortalization Of Youth, And The Innocence Of Childhood., Elizabeth Caps

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ideals, aesthetics, forms, and concepts have resurfaced in various cultures throughout time. I am interested in the idea of the recurring themes that exist in the collective unconscious. I create monolithic figures that exhibit these archetypal qualities. Heavily influenced by film, animation, video games, and contemporary art, I create figures and paintings that are manifestations of my subconscious. These manifestations personify utopian ideals, the immortalization of youth, and the innocence of childhood.


Decisive Moments In Fiction, Janae Corrado Jan 2009

Decisive Moments In Fiction, Janae Corrado

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

I approach artmaking with a sense of intrigue, portraying the human condition as seen through my own eyes. The results that surface are female forms combined with subliminal subjective symbolism--a fusion of my personal experiences and influences created through a partially subconscious process. I use this artistic process to help me understand myself and I dare my viewers to seek their own answers within the implied narratives I choose to paint.


Fabric Architecture: Body In Motion, Daniela Cosovic Jan 2009

Fabric Architecture: Body In Motion, Daniela Cosovic

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Making a dress, creating an object for someone else is a simple act of giving to another person. I did not want to decide between an object to wear and one to hang on the wall, so I gave you both, and movement in between. Take a dress off of a wall. Wear it. Put it back on the wall. Repeat it, or not. There is balance in movement of an object between a person and the wall. It is this quietness of balance amongst the sound of movement that I am seeking in my work.


My Mind Is A Hole In The Universe, Glen Gramling Jan 2009

My Mind Is A Hole In The Universe, Glen Gramling

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Today, science and creative fiction are closer than ever. The current unified theory of physics is bringing parallel worlds and infinite realities into the light of truth, proving that we have the creative power to build worlds with grandiose landscapes, uncanny characters, and miraculous events that exists throughout the vast plane of reality. My life experiences become a skewed alternate reality absorbing all of my thoughts, fears, and fascinations without control. As I glimpse into my own mind, I record the imagery of my imagined worlds and chronicle its events. I am not conceptualizing; I'm not asking what if. I …


Dimensions Of Identity, Alice Kramer Jan 2009

Dimensions Of Identity, Alice Kramer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Imagination and fantasy environments created by writers and artists have always drawn people into their worlds. Advances in technology have blurred the lines between reality and imagination. My interest has always been to question the validity of these worlds and their cultures and to transcend the evolving virtual dimension by fusing it with what we perceive to be reality.


Perceptions Of Cuteness And Beauty, Danielle Jones Jan 2009

Perceptions Of Cuteness And Beauty, Danielle Jones

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Upbringing and psychological make-up inspire individual norms for beauty and cuteness. The mannerist approach in my work is a product of the figural liberties found in cartooning, illustration and art history. By altering facial and bodily features, I relate the proportions of an infant to cuteness and innocence. However, I tailor the photographs to empower the subjects all the while mirroring trends in contemporary pop culture. I'm interested in themes of everyday life, vitality and emotion placed in obscure, imaginary or exaggerated venues. I fictionalize subjects of my reality to compel viewers to identify with and fancy emotions, circumstances, moods …


Of Gods, Beasts And Men: Digital Sculpture, Brian Salisbury Jan 2009

Of Gods, Beasts And Men: Digital Sculpture, Brian Salisbury

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My most recent body of work explores the synthesis of my influences, interests and life experiences into imagery of common themes: The expression of dynamic figures and forms and colors in digital 3d space, cinematic composition, and vibrant color, expressed through a semblance of Aztec culture and wildlife. My sculptures of nature and ancient culture are created using contemporary digital art creation technologies and techniques. I examine the art and religion of the Aztecs and the universal search for understanding and purpose in the world and the forces around and beyond us.


Color Psychotherapy And Painting In The Satellite-Expanded Field, Katherine Urban Jan 2009

Color Psychotherapy And Painting In The Satellite-Expanded Field, Katherine Urban

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My work deals with the subconscious pairing of colors from an instinctively chosen color palette into molded forms. My emotions drive these pairings. As I visualize these different emotions, I ask the viewer to formulate their own perceptions and connections (both physical and emotional) in relation to my own. This allows the viewer to explore the emotional twists and turns of my imagination by their own unique associations in correspondence. Painting allows me to visualize the inner depth of my imagination. My work becomes concrete through the subconscious pairing of colors and shapes and evolves with viewer interaction.


Portraiture: An Interactive Experience, Juan Lopez Jan 2008

Portraiture: An Interactive Experience, Juan Lopez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Linking his thematic inspiration (the strange, the bizarre, the weird and the odd) to his artistic reflection, Lopez conceives of his work as based on his fascination with human facial expressions. "It is there where it is born", he says. Like Leonardo, he believes that the eye is the superior organ. Lopez's use of form and color represents his main objective: to show emotion, humanity and elegance. For that, it is necessary for him to reveal character as well as beauty. It is again, the approach used by the great masters such as Leonardo, Velazquez, Gericault and Goya in representing …


Series Of Disintegrated Memories, Simona Balas Jan 2007

Series Of Disintegrated Memories, Simona Balas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Being absent from things or places for a period of time, we try to connect by revisiting our memories. There is always a vivid remembrance of certain objects or surroundings, but when we try to connect them, the truth in our mind deviates from the reality. The disintegration of the memories and the morphing of our imagination create a different reality in our minds that we begin to believe, considering that the truth becomes almost completely abstracted and obscured as time passes.


The Rebirth Of Consciousness, Urszula Blaszak Jan 2007

The Rebirth Of Consciousness, Urszula Blaszak

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Human beings encounter cascades of a plethora of experiences, one after another, every single microsecond of our lives. There are many things happening around. The world is full of events and occurrences. As they happen, the mind reacts to every individual input. This is a very exhausting and difficult. Thus, people have developed a process of self-defense against this horrible mishmash of information. Their minds have this amazing capacity of sorting them out and making sense out of them. Humankind's survival depends on that. If one does not sort all this information out, one might not be able to make …


The Illusion Of Art: My Amalgamation Of Illustration And Contemporary Art, Victor Davila Jan 2007

The Illusion Of Art: My Amalgamation Of Illustration And Contemporary Art, Victor Davila

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Drawing on archetypical aspects of human characteristics and personalities, I create images that illustrate our connection to memory, media, and culture. My work is informed by pop culture, including television, movies, cartoons and comic books as it relates to characters in our own physical world and society. The grid is used to represent both childhood games and the frames of a comic strip, where each panel equals an exact moment of time.