Art and Design Commons^™

In This Time And Place, Christy Aggens

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

I seek out and spend time in relatively wild outdoor locations and create art based on my observations. The resulting work explores time and place, while the creation of the work increases my engagement with the environment. This process serves as a reminder that time is relative and life itself is continuous.

I start by finding time in locations where nature has been given a chance to thrive and where the sound of human activity is at a minimum. During these retreats, I use my senses to absorb information and document the experience by journaling, making recordings, taking photographs, drawing, …

The Ghosts Shed Tears, Sarah Jentsch

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

Before I was taught what made us different, I thought my brother and I were the same. The only difference between a doe and a buck was the antlers. As I grew, I noticed differences—in the way people spoke to us, in what was expected of us, in the questions we were asked. In what our futures were supposed to look like. The difference between the doe and the buck was still the antlers, but those antlers made one a trophy and the other venison.

Many of my formative experiences I came to understand through animals. My family home, cradled …

Idylls, Madison Aunger

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

An “Idyll” is defined as a happy, peaceful, or picturesque scene. The term references poetry that describes a small intimate world, and scenes from everyday life.

This exhibition, Idylls, showcases the little world of my home here in Lincoln, Nebraska. The paintings mirror my experience of the domestic spaces in my life, and the peaceful moments I encounter. In Idylls you are encouraged to be idle. We do ourselves a disservice when we don’t take the time to slow down.

My work begins as an excitement about a specific formal quality, a shape of light, a hint of color, repetition …

Study Of Native Colombian Tribes: Art As A Means Of Inspiration, Sofia Fernandez

Honors Theses

Study of Native Colombian Tribes: Art as a Means of Inspiration, examines Latin American art, particularly Indigenous Colombian art as a source of inspiration for the creation of a series of artworks. This project considers two Colombian tribes: Wayuu and Okaina. It emphasizes these tribes’ ancestry, history, purpose, and traditions, with the objective of giving them a voice in a community where they are underrepresented and unknown. This thesis provides a critical look into the tribe’s traditions and artistic techniques through the creation of a variety paintings, drawings, and prints. This body of work concentrates on textiles and patterns from …

Malleable Perspectives, Erik White

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

I attentively paint hastily formed figures, symbols, objects, and scenes that were modeled with never-dry clay onto stretched canvases of various sizes. I paint the malleable character of the clay by depicting its bumps, marks and dents, which emphasizes the fragility, impermanence, and the physical construction of the forms. Those visual attributes serve as a metaphor for the social construction of the concepts within the chosen imagery. To create my images I build clay up and physically move it around—in a similar way, ideas and concepts get built up, manipulated, and changed over time. These paintings serve as a cultural …

Art Club, Elizabeth Griggs

Honors Expanded Learning Clubs

The goal of this art club is to introduce students to various painting techniques. This club is designed for those students who enjoy being creative and learning various painting techniques.

Whitetail, Michael Steven Villarreal

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

When I was growing up, both my parents worked at a U-Haul from which they brought home discarded objects to the house my dad built with his own hands. This home, interior and exterior, was not designed to fit an explicit aesthetic, but all aspects of the house were in harmony and completed by the objects brought into each space. The house became a repository for abandoned domestic American culture— beds, window blinds, couches, appliances, and other products made it into the home in irregular but frequent intervals. For me, each item was an opportunity to have something new to …

Maybe The Gate Could Be A Fan, Erin L. Schoenbeck

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

I notice with quiet thrill an individual object or shape such as a railing, an odd pattern in the cement, a handle that does not match the rest, or a surprisingly decorative form intended only for a useful purpose. Choosing a form for its potential function, strange shape or particular color, I filter it through my aesthetic. My mental repetition of the day’s stresses is changed into lighthearted wondering. Maybe that gate I passed could become a beautiful fanned shape, its silhouette in gold and pale green. It could be so tiny its functional life outdoors is transformed into delicate …