Art and Design Commons^™

Movement, Mechanization, And Coexistence, Yukyung Chung

Masters Theses

A movement is a tool that expresses the subject I pursue, ‘mechanization of human beings’. There are many technologies that replace humans these days, such as artificial intelligence. This makes me skeptical and afraid of being replaced as an artist in the future. Paradoxically, people, including myself, are enthusiastic about it, indicating that we do embrace the mechanization process as a society.

I will reveal this phenomenon of coexistence by demonstrating the possibility that machines cannot replace us, through motion experiments where rules increase, first starting with the reliance on intuition. I will explore not only the things that machines …

A Presence Of P____ And W__Th, Riley Wilson

Masters Theses

This body of work examines the involvement of association as it relates to our cultural interpretations of natural phenomena. Flowers and animals, both real and imagined, have been used as symbols for human morality since the beginning of human history. Two sources with which I drew inspiration from are medieval bestiaries and the Victorian practice of flower language. By combining elements from these references, I aim to pair this idea about the human need for classification with my own considerations about my identity. In combination, I also aim to highlight the responsibility that is intrinsic to curiosity. When faced with …

Tracing As Process, Lesley Su

Masters Theses

Tracing is a way to observe, document and translate, to be anchored in the physical working, to find personal occupancy in the built environment.

By establishing one-to-one relationships with the physical context, tracing enables us to comprehend objects in multiple dimensions. Through tracing, we can explore how two-dimensional drawings can be transformed into three-dimensional objects, and vice versa, objects can be documented through drawing to capture the essence of reality.

Based on materials and motion, research on tracing techniques guides me into how tracing could act as a process of art and architecture practice.

A Room Full Of Pigeons And Three Spectators, Dina Khorchid, Dina Nazmi Khorchid

Masters Theses

My work explores themes of identity politics, domesticity, land and memory access - in relation to my own lived experiences as a Palestinian refugee, a daughter of a missing war casualty and an artist.

In this thesis book, I present a cumulation of thoughts, emotions and findings, along with a selection of works from the last two years.

During my time at the Rhode Island School of Design, messenger pigeons took over my studio, channeling physical and mental realms of grief and remembrance. By looking closely at the bird’s aesthetics and behaviorisms in my first semester, their resting deceased bodies …

Translational Placemaking: The Diasporic Archive, Alia Varawalla

Masters Theses

Globalization and mass migration has propelled a hybrid existence, as individuals that occupy multiple geographies we live in a constant state of translation. Our museums and cultural institutions are in opposition to this; static, preserved and de-contextualized. At the intersection of printmaking and architecture, this thesis proposes a living archive to document the collective migratory journey across sites, materials, and hybrid identities. A network of centers for knowledge sharing and production centered on India and its diaspora. As art practices and people migrate, cultural production evolves with its context, gaining new meaning as it changes hands generationally and globally.

One More Time, I Love You —— 我有所念人，隔在远远乡, Jingjing Yang

Masters Theses

"One More Time, I Love You ——我有所念人，隔在远远乡" is a thesis project that delves into the profound nature of "obsession," which surpasses the boundaries of life and death, as well as the mortal world and the underworld. The interpretation of this type of obsession varies among individuals, and my understanding of it originates from the traditional Chinese myth concerning the afterlife journey. According to this myth, upon departing from the mortal realm, the deceased traverse the Bridge of Helplessness, cross the Forgotten River, peruse their past, present, and future lives on a Three Lives Stone, and then partake in the Soup …

Objects And Apparitions: A Portable Museum, Yesuk Seo

Masters Theses

My work transcends the boundaries between painterly printmaking and sculpture. Through hand-pulled silkscreen prints, I create abstract pixelated images depicting our constantly changing relationship with meaning and reality. Memories are often glamorized and distorted whether it is our childhood home, our neighborhood, or the city. My practice archives my family history and traces patterns in memory and space by using invisibility as a phenomena to render newer explorations of abstraction, in time and in urban landscapes. Objects & Apparitions: A Portable Museum, pairs moiré patterns of ghostly printmaking with wooden objects in specific arrangements. It captures my nomadic journey between …

Rotten And Falling, Khwanchira Chindamanee

Masters Theses

Abstract

I am an artist printmaker fascinated by the theme of impermanence as manifested through the cycle of birth, aging and death. Death is not the end of the cycle, however. Death begets transformation, via decay, of one form into another or perhaps others.

During my time at RISD, I received a scholarship to study Japanese paper making in Iowa. The experience was transformative for both my printing and soft sculpture. Later, I learned about mycelium, and began incorporating this living element into my work.

This thesis reflects on my primary source of artistic inspiration, the hup taem murals of …

Making Then Meaning, Ben Denzer

Masters Theses

This is an artist talk contained within a book. It is 816 pages and 49 minutes long. Closed captions run across the spreads. A video of this talk can be watched on bendenzer.com/making-then-meaning

At RISD, I’ve been prompted to expand the scope and tools of my practice and to reflect on questions of meaning in my work.

I spend my days making things, but I’ve never really had good answers to questions of why I make the things I make, or what their meaning is. I don’t think there are simple answers to these questions.

I think meaning comes from …

Soul Furnace / فرن الأرواح, Isa Ghanayem

Masters Theses

“This is the good washing, this is (the washing) which separates the dirty body from the pure body. This is like silver mixed with lead, it is separated from it by this (process): one makes for it a cupel of bones, which is what is called the “head of the dog” and of which the common name is kūja-which is the crucible—and this must be made of burnt bones. One melts the silver in it, one gives it a strong fire: the cupel will absorb and receive the lead, the fire will make its subtle (part) fly away and extirpate …

Metaphors In Materials And Imagery For Self Reclamation And Empowerment, Janice Lardey

Masters Theses

As an experimental multidisciplinary artist, my creative process draws inspiration from daily experiences and encounters with the mundane. I am particularly interested in West African textile cultural practices, specifically the use of symbols and basic geometric forms to communicate through materials (specifically fabrics) and the role these images and forms play in African culture. In my work, I am developing my own distinct vocabulary of symbols and patterns, inspired by these practices.

My artistic practice explores a wide range of themes related to women, sustainability, loss, everydayness, wear and tear, degeneration, the transitory nature of life, and material effects, often …

I Buried The Fireworks Under The Tree, Sihan Zhu

Masters Theses

Unreachable memories always surround me. I've been trying to extract logical parts from my chaotic memories, hoping to find a connection with the world within the soundless, intangible black fireworks stored in my retina under the grand fireworks display. When I first encountered intaglio printmaking, I impulsively drew subconscious memories on the plate, arranging them along some chaotic storylines. Gradually, I realized that I needed to create my own logical structure. So I started using specific visual symbols and repeating them, using the repetition of the printmaking process to search for logical clues. Printmaking with its special rhythm allowed me …

Step 10, Jinhong Cai

Masters Theses

Step 10 is an experiment on provoking empathy through

abstracted elements within my studio practice. I am

proposing to craft an emotional piece without leaning

on my identity. This written thesis consists of two parts:

narrative prose and an explanation of my studio practice.

While the installation is entirely devoid of cultural or

personal references, this text-based thesis is full of them

because it is intended to inform whoever is interested in

learning more about the motive behind this creation.

The questions I bought into the thought and creation

process are: Can a piece of art still successfully bring

out …

Recipes For Building Relationships, Adriana Lintz

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the history of women's access to education and the issues of gender disparity in education. I focus on single-gendered schools as I write from personal experience to describe the benefits for individuals in single-gender educational systems. I cite conflicting research on how men and women learn regarding biological, cognitive, and developmental differences. I illuminate some of the benefits of single-gendered education through research, experience, and personal communications. I write about the controversies and disparities regarding education and single-gender schools. I document research on the issues women face in education and the politics of women’s bodies and minds …

All Bodies Wander, Haley Mackeil

Masters Theses

This thesis describes how aspects of the environment can evoke the presence of a living organism. It discusses several projects by Haley MacKeil that are based on research within the natural world that includes documentation of sites, processes, installations, and artifacts made through video, glass, and papermaking. MacKeil’s practice forms a threshold between two worlds, two bodies, two different understandings—it creates sites for connections with something, someone, or a place that cannot be directly accessed.

El Suelo En Duelo, Mariana Ramos Ortiz

Masters Theses

This is a thesis about colonialism.

When I was seven years old I interrogated my mom about the consequences of Puerto Rico achieving its independence from the United States. I remember asking her “If Puerto Rico gains its independence, would that mean that we would no longer be able to purchase apples at the store?” The warm climate prohibits apples from growing in Puerto Rico. I never liked apples, and would much rather have had oranges, but I guess that concerned me at that time. She looked at me with a funny look. With that funny look that any parent …

Sometimes Like Butterflies, Edward Steffanni

Masters Theses

Perhaps the most radical thing to do is to embrace the tension, being between the heavens and earth. Maybe regardless of identity, sometimes the earth is not enough but there are moments I’ve experienced where the distance between heaven and earth blurs. These are instants where my troubles do melt like lemon drop: the smell of freshly cut hay in a field nearby, seeing a baby goat’s tail wiggle while he nurses his mother, or making love behind the barn. These are moments on earth when something else comes into focus.

Prepositions, Alexis Hill

Masters Theses

My work is a conscious engagement with traditions of process art that emphasize making over outcome and the desire to create art that cannot be predetermined. The art objects are primarily a by-product of engagement with my material reality. This is hard to pin down and harder to talk about. Historian Kim Grant’s introduction to the circular and sometimes impenetrable creative process is a good summation of one of the essential problems of my art [school] experience: “The artist’s hard work often takes place without a clearly denied goal, thereby rendering the artist’s labors endless, and any results resistant to …

Sapping, Smudging, Staining: A Feminized Body, Breslin Shea Bell

Masters Theses

This book—of poetry, prose, and lists—muses on the effects of liquidity and leakiness of a feminized body. By bringing echo narrative, illegibility, de-telling, and that which is continuously wet to the viewer’s body and space, this book and accompanying multimedia installation provides a lens to consider reproductive rights, body autonomy, and gender-based aggression and violence. Work of matter and color investigates interiority, both bodily and spatial, as it relates to surface, access, and space-making.

Storytelling In Arts, Lindi Shi

Masters Theses

People and narratives are the core of my art practice. Compared with only exploring the subject matter, I am more excited about the characters and narratives around it. My media gradually shifts from flat drawings or prints to installation, performance, and even explosions. Perhaps as a human myself, I like people a lot. There are always interesting stories where people go. The thesis discusses four stories, including an oral tale from my grandma, my personal experience, stories about bodies, and a story in the imagination. This writing reflects my research on the relationship between types of storytelling and various art …

Art Beside A Single Handshake : Can You Believe It?, Tongji Qian

Masters Theses

Although I was familiar with works by both McKinzie and Phil, their prints still caught my attention during the Printmaking Graduate Biennial at Rhode Island School of Design in January 2019. In contrast to the numerous talented artists who employed strategies to affirm the relevancy of printmaking in a contemporary discourse, McKinzie and Phil seemed to desire something different. Their collaboration series of Ten Identical Prints was predictably “printerly” and perilously unexciting, betraying a fraught and commonplace relationship between an expressive artist and a scrupulous master printer. How could these two artists showcase such mundanity? What was the stake of …

Recipes, Camille Chew

Masters Theses

Ingredients and materials can be manipulated and combined to create something new-a transformation akin to alchemy. Vegetables are chopped and brewed into soup; clay is glazed and fired into sculpture; flour. sugar. butter and eggs bake into a cake; ink is pressed into paper to make prints. These processes are acts of magic that are performed in kitchens and studios every day.

After spending all day working in the print shop, I always feel most refreshed and contented once I've cooked a meal and sat down to enjoy it. This past year I began bringing baked goods to class crits …

Things That Grew While I Looked At The Ground, Heather Mcmordie

Masters Theses

Broadly speaking, I am interested in the role of fine arts in translating the complexities of natural systems. This particular body of work explores the relationship between printmaking and soil science—just one of the many possible relationships between arts and sciences—with a focus on salt marsh soil systems. Generating public interest soil systems and other hidden ecological systems can be difficult due to the opaqueness of language and concepts surrounding these systems and a perceived distance (physically or conceptually) from the general public. Printmaking—with its inherent multiplicity, mediation, and readability—offers opportunities for making the seeming abstraction of soils evocative and …

Rootless, Lilla Szekely

Masters Theses

This thesis is an attempt to understand the relationship of my art to nature and my sense of rootlessness. I have been imprinted by the places I have lived in yet disconnected from them as well. I am often situated on the 'other side' and as my perspective has learned to shift between the global and the local, between the outsider and insider gaze, I have come to describe this ability as being 'rootless'. I believe this condition is more common in America, the country of immigrants than anywhere else. Our memories are often re-told in the form of stories …

How To Be Simultaneously Precise And Nondescript, Mckinzie Trotta

Masters Theses

As I stood by my car, I kept coming back to the phrase. It is more difficult to hit a moving target. This time, it was not just a passing platitude. I thought more. Just as it is more difficult to intentionally hit a moving target, a moving target is simultaneously more difficult to intentionally miss. It might be easier to hit a moving target if what one is really trying to do is miss it. Isn’t this why car accidents happen? People hit the thing they are by all means trying to avoid. Everyone is in motion and despite …

The Things Of Mind, Yini Luo

Masters Theses

My thesis research shows my thinking and reflection on environmental changes around me in the past and especially the past two years. Through the experience between the city and nature, my research has clarified my different perspectives and explored the expression and reproduction through the print media and glass media.

Supposing Truth Is A Woman, Chloe Wilwerding

Masters Theses

This unbound print portfolio documents the author's spiritual search for meaning through text and image.

Human Artist, Nicholas Costantino

Masters Theses

This Artist Book details the author's thoughts on being an artist, his studio practice, and being human.

Fungible Commodities, Kelly Taylor Mitchell

Masters Theses

This is an unbound portfolio printed using polymer plates on the vandercook press, in Providence, Rhode Island. The portfolio was created as a supplement for fungible commodities, a series of three multimedia installations.

The Contested Landscapes Of Mnemosyne : Constructing Maps Of Memory, Valeria Rachel Herrera

Masters Theses

This is an unbound portfolio UV printed on plexiglass containing fragments and scenes from my master’s thesis The Contested Landscapes of Mnemosyne - Constructing Maps of Memory.