Art and Design Commons^™

Toile, Dilenia Garcia

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Toile is a painting series that explores constructions of taste and the semiotics of manufactured fabrics. Through the use of irony, paradox and deconstructions of rhythm, shape, color and form, the paintings are a response to the formal and historical content in the fabric. The idyllic landscape, notions of identity, sexism and liminality are some of the themes considered in the series. The paintings in this exhibition attempt to correct and mediate outdated models of representation through the exploration of painting as a process that is open and malleable.

Ant Tribe, Yan Zhao

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

"Ant Tribe" describes the post-80s generation university graduates who live together in poor conditions without Social security in communities around China's major metropolises. They dream of a better life in big cities but struggle with low-paying jobs. These struggling "elites" have become the fourth weak Social group, after peasants, migrant workers and unemployed people. The reason why these college graduates are compared to ants is that they are like ants: clever, hardworking, politically weak and living in groups.

The real world is always different from the ideal world of the "Ant Tribe" in China. They often lose their purposes in …