Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Light Leaf: Observations Of Leaves In Light, Paul Kelley

The STEAM Journal

For me, spending time in isolation yielded some interesting findings, as I began to closely observe the various leaves that engulf my backyard. Every new day brought with it a new detail, a subtlety with every shift in light, revealing an endless array of abstractions, textures and colors. I was seeing the hidden life of leaves dancing in the sunlight. Naturally, I began documenting my observations.

Reimagining Identity Through Photography: The Experience Of Intersectionality For Asian-American Women, Noelle Song

CMC Senior Theses

"Reimagining Identity Through Photography: The Experience of Intersectionality for Asian-American Women'' aims to challenge the common stereotypes of Asian-American women in modern society by examining the history of their identities as both women and Asian Americans. The project highlights the negative consequences of complacency to these stereotypes, exploring the complexity of the model minority myth, intersectionality, and standpoint theory, while providing historical context to understand the violent crimes committed against this demographic. I curated a physical gallery space of 18 images featuring 9 Asian-American women to deconstruct racial and gender myths that contribute to the model minority myth. This exhibition …

Representing The Ali'i And Monarchy: Dress, Diplomacy, And Featherwork In Hawai'i, Tess Anderson

Scripps Senior Theses

When Native Hawaiians and haole (foreigners) first met, both participants belonged to fashion systems unknown to the other, composed of different materials, styles, tastes, standards, and construction techniques. As the outside world was introduced to the cultural heritage of Hawaiian hulu manu (featherwork), kūkaulani (chiefly fashion), and European skewed conceptions of Hawaiian indigeneity; the ali‘i (chiefs) and kama‘āina (commoners) received and adapted to incoming materials, technologies, and information. When these encounters transitioned into “prolonged contact” and settlement, dress and adornment proliferated in new ways. Analyzing the case studies of historic pā‘ū, holokū, ‘ahu'ula, and military uniforms shows the significance of …

Mothers Behind Cameras: Mother-Artist, Mother-Child Dyads In Sally Mann’S Immediate Family And Elinor Carucci’S Mother, Hayley A. Pierpont

Scripps Senior Theses

Women, particularly mothers, are often made invisible within narratives of their own family and domestic spaces, despite their role as creators and maintainers of those spaces. This perpetuation of invisibility is threaded throughout the history of artistic practices, (photography especially). Contemporary mother-artists Sally Mann and Elinor Carucci confront and unapologetically reflect their singular experience(s) with motherhood through their photography, which addresses the symbiotic dyads of mother-child and mother-artist. This thesis focuses on an analysis of four images: Mann’s The Wet Bed and Lee’s Dirty Hands, and Carucci’s Trying to Protect Emanuelle and I Will Protect You. In both …

A Web Of Connections: How Early Twentieth-Century American Women Writers And Photographers Situated A New Way Of Seeing, Kristina Krause

CGU Theses & Dissertations

While there are several studies of the relationships and influences between American male photographers and writers, this study examines the lesser known and understudied collaborations and connections between early, twentieth-century American women photographers and writers, beginning around the end of the nineteenth century and extending into the 1930s. The web of connections between women writers and photographers, connections created through influence, through mentorship, through friendship, or through collaboration, provided a space in which they could situate a new way of seeing and defining each other as women and as artists, and it manifested in the empathetic manner in which they …

Changing Perceptions Of The Carceral Space Through Photography: The Tehachapi Project By Jr, Alexi Butts

Scripps Senior Theses

“Can art change the world?”

In his global art practice, French artist JR transforms overlooked communities into valued canvases. With an approach rooted in collaboration, JR’s large-scale public photographic installations integrate the built environment into a visual experience of human life.

In October, 2019, JR and his team entered the maximum security prison in Tehachapi, California to embark on a new collaborative project: “Tehachapi.” This paper explores the impact of “Tehachapi” as it extends beyond the physical photograph wheat-pasted on the floor of the prison’s courtyard to touch on issues of humanity, power and accessibility. Created as a collage of …

The Standard Model, Manny Llanura

CGU MFA Theses

Photography is my medium. “The Standard Model” is a body of work created from photographs of the Los Angeles Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2019 Collection runway.

Each final work starts with over a thousand photos that become the raw materials from which I eventually produce my final piece. Deep in the final piece are the lights, shadows, hues, tones of a themed shoot.

I believe that the ability to focus on what is in front of you is not directly proportional to how detailed the image is. My goal is to incite appreciation of what humans have done or …

Autopathography, Aurora Berger

CGU MFA Theses

For centuries the stories of disabled people were not our own to tell. We were silenced by politics and power dynamics beyond our control, and when we succeeded it was “in spite of” our disabilities. I am interested in the reframing of this narrative and discovering my place in this historic trajectory.

I am a disabled artist. I have claimed this identity. It is critical that this identity remains tied to my work as I navigate the worlds of fine art, academia, and critical theory. My art is intrinsically tied to my academic work. They are inseparably bonded through my …

A Vestige Of Architectural History: The Lansell Laboratory Building, Michael J. Leach

The STEAM Journal

The Lansell Laboratory Building is a beautiful heritage edifice located in the grounds of the old Bendigo Hospital in my hometown of Bendigo, Australia. I once worked in the Lansell Laboratory Building in my role as Data & Quality Specialist with the Loddon Mallee Integrated Cancer Service. I took this photograph of the building as I left it for the last time late one afternoon, just before moving to an office in the new Bendigo Hospital across the road. I felt as though the shadows falling across the building at this time of day were marking the end of an …

Kleptomaniac, Leslie Frank

CGU MFA Theses

I am a Kleptomaniac of public and private moments. Using my iPhone, I steal images of people and objects in public environments and frame these moments with the addition of my own poetic essence. I feel that Los Angeles is a unique city built on imagination, expectations and disappointments. Another aspect that is satisfying to me is the validation that I feel when I am at the right place at the right time. We don't always get to feel this in everyday life. Whether the experience is similar or foreign, the empathy is significant.

Photography And Mourning: Excavating Memories Of My Great-Grandmother, Eva Weiner

Scripps Senior Theses

This paper explores how photographs have affected mourning processes in the past and how photo-technology may be able to change the way in which we mourn in the future. It includes an overview of the history of post-mortem photography and discusses the perspectives of well-known media theorists such as Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag. It engages with psychologists by including their perspectives on the effect that photographs have on the mourning process. A project was created to investigate how photo-technology can affect the bereaved. The project places photographs of a mother into pictures of her children taken after she had …

Topical, Trista Hurley-Waxali

The STEAM Journal

This is a piece to start the discussion of how the lightening of pigmentation through melanin manipulation evolved from the demands of cover art photography.

Nature In Deconstruction, Russell Chowdhury

The STEAM Journal

This 'desconstructive photography' shows how humans interact with nature.

All Glory Is Fleeting, Steven Beswick

CGU MFA Theses

The statement is specifically linked to my MFA thesis exhibition.

Everything, Everything Seemed Once-Upon-A-Time, Denisse Leung Liu

CGU MFA Theses

The pleasant feeling of being relaxed is what I want the viewer to feel with my work. The art I make is the source of peacefulness and tranquility I treasure, in a way that there is tranquility and absence of noise, yet it whispers quietly to the viewer.

Everything, Everything Seemed Once-Upon-A-Time, Denisse Leung Liu

CGU MFA Theses

The pleasant feeling of being relaxed is what I want the viewer to feel with my work. The art I make is the source of peacefulness and tranquility I treasure, in a way that there is tranquility and absence of noise, yet it whispers quietly to the viewer.

[Rebelution 17]: Gender Bender, Francesca Louise Inocentes

Scripps Senior Theses

Fashion embodies what is accepted and valued in a given culture or society and empowers individuals by building self-confidence, enabling them to express themselves authentically through their bodies and garments. The gender binary, perpetuated by the mainstream fashion industry, marginalizes individuals who do not conform to it. In Rebelution 17, I utilize clothing design and photography to empower and liberate individuals who do not conform to the standards of beauty in regards to gender identity and acceptability. The finished works are featured in a Lookbook – a digital and physical collection of photographs used to market fashion – designed …

Vida En Sombras, Tommy Canales Burns

CGU MFA Theses

Verisimilitude. What is reality? Subconsciously we are acting out and absorbing information collating data and in turn responding with instincts. Learning processes to view and shape this world. I think of the Hermann Hesse’s doppelganger, the idea of a shadow self. Group identities can also have strange shadow selves. It is bizarre to look back at history and see the changing context of social norms, fashions, traditions, scientific, philosophical, and political thought. Art is a sign of the times, creating space for the inner dialogue of collective consciousness to be purged and hashed out.

The Art And Science Of Light Painting, Reid Godshaw

The STEAM Journal

A short overview of the making of light painting portraits explained by the artist.

Animals In The Wild, Brittany Samson

The STEAM Journal

As a photographer, I am extremely interested in the concept of perception and I let this concept drive most of my artistic work. I present four images from my photographic series “Animals in the Wild,” which explore this idea of perception. These four images: Giraffe, Dinosaur, Buffalo, and Bunny—are drastically varied photos that include no real animals, but instead beg the mind to perceive shapes, colors, figure, and coincidence as an animal.

Aesthesia, Cindy G. Garcia

CGU MFA Theses

My art practice in itself, is first and foremost about me as a Human on this planet. Second, I am drawn to the cognitive dissonance that happens within each individual, this is key to the majority of my work. For this show I really wanted to emphasize; A: The textural, corporal involvement that I personally really enjoy and get satisfaction out of. B: The color of Life. C: The beauty in very introspective particular instances that happen in day to day life.

Lara Salmon, Thesis Statement, Lara Salmon

CGU MFA Theses

My art brings together materials and ideas inspired by personal experience that do not usually exist side by side. My body is the primary mechanism with which I make work, incidentally making me the subject matter of the work. I use my physical self as an instrument to coalesce and transform other materiality. Through live performance and photographic installations I create tension and balance between crude biology and bright, polished formalism. This body of work focuses on Millennial Feminism and the Middle East.

Performing The Uncanny: An Exploration Of Self Through Alternative Process Photography, Caroline Thomas

Scripps Senior Theses

This paper considers how the tradition of self-portraiture and alternative process photography can be used in conjunction with one another to perform the uncanny. I discuss the "uncanny" through three theoretical lenses: Sigmund Freud, Hal Foster, and Rosalind Krauss. I then go on to discuss how the "uncanny" has been used in alternative processes of contemporary work by examining Robert Heinecken and Joyce Neimanas. Finally by looking at Francesca Woodman's self-portraiture, I address how self-portraiture can be a type of performance and how this influenced my own series during my 2015 Fall semester. As a whole this paper addresses how …

Dissociative Anonymity: Performative Photography And The Use Of Uncanny Disguise, Catherine G. Poole

Scripps Senior Theses

In my thesis project, I aim to explore the ways in which we can perform parts of our identity by hiding the body through the use of performative disguises. These characters transgress the boundaries between societal norms and abject interactions. In these costumes, I hope to find whether or not the multiple facets of our identities can be distilled into one character--whether the self can be shifted into another character for a constructive narrative.

The Fragile Bee: Nancy Macko At Moah, Kathleen Stewart Howe, Carole Ann Klonarides, Stephen Nowlin, Nancy Macko

Pomona Faculty Books

“The Fragile Bee” was exhibited at the Museum of Art and History in Lancaster, CA and is an outcry to the plight of the bees in relationship to the environment. This accompanying catalog critically examines the work in the exhibition beginning with a foreword by Andi Campognone, museum manager and curator at MOAH. Artist Nancy Macko established a garden for native bee-attracting plants in order to document them throughout the year. The resulting series of photographs, "Botanical Portraits", are the subject of the essay by museum director Kathleen Stewart Howe. Contemporary art writer and curator Carole Ann Klonarides writes in …

On The Road With The Vanlife Community: The Art Of Storytelling In The Age Of Instagram, Joseph Dorn

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis analyzes the countercultural community known as VanLife. Foster Huntington coined the term VanLife in 2011, when he decided to leave his comfortable job at Ralph Lauren and detach from society. Foster and many other individuals have moved into their vans to gain more freedom and live simply. For this thesis I studied the stories about life on the road, written by VanLife participants. I examined their blogs, photographs, and Instagram accounts. I did a literary analysis of Kerouac’s famous Beat novel, On The Road, as well as Steinbeck’s travel memoir, Travels with Charley.

I wanted to …

From The Inside Out, And Through., Dominique Ovalle

The STEAM Journal

These photographs describe “Science” born of consumerism, hijacked by me, economically disenfranchised, or rather—temporarily embarrassed, artist. I was putzing around Malibu—my old college stomping ground, looking for free food; maybe a sample of some gourmet $5 chocolate, and all I got were these photographs.

The Beautiful Corpse: Violence Against Women In Fashion Photography, Susan C. Bryant

Scripps Senior Theses

My senior thesis deals with contemporary depictions of sexualized violence against women in fashion photography. Images of bloodied, bruised, and dead-looking models have proliferated in fashion magazine editorials and advertisements since the 1970s and I want to explore why sexualized violence is seen as sexy and compelling advertising, in light of the fact that domestic violence is the greatest cause of injury to women in America. I produced my own fashion photographs in locations of actual female homicides in Los Angeles County, particularly those nearest to Claremont, with the use of The Los Angeles Times online homicide database, which pinpoints …

The Stories Of Environmental Ethicists In Word And Image, Camille Robins

Scripps Senior Theses

The Stories of Environmental Ethicists in Word and Image captures the spirit of three local people: John B. Cobb, Jr., Rosemary Radford Ruether, and Dean Freudenberger. As teachers, writers, activists, and members of the progressive retirement community Pilgrim Place, they’ve had a significant influence on the global environmental movement. The photographs and small essays in this project highlight who they are and what they’ve done, and how they continue to shape contemporary intellectual discourse. An analysis of how portrait photographers use images to tell stories and how they incorporate text in their photographic collections to create fuller, more robust pictures …

Flotsam & Jetsam, Nicolas S. Shake

CGU MFA Theses

My work is pastoral and post-apocalyptic with one foot firmly planted in historical painting and the other in traditional still-life, so it is entropic and sanguine, gleeful, despondent, and matter of fact. It comes at a point in time when the fiction of Nature as a refuge is no longer viable, persuasive or convincing. But rather than rehash this fact, my work celebrates the pastoral’s everyday ordinariness, the capacity for the viewer to experience something wondrous amidst decline. I focus on the cast-off household and utilitarian items that show up in the desert on the outskirts of Los Angeles. The …