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Articles 1 - 30 of 122
Full-Text Articles in Art and Design
The J In Danger, Zachary Delamater
The J In Danger, Zachary Delamater
Theses and Dissertations
“The J in Danger” merges autobiographic and formal concerns in sculpture and installation to describe the existential hazards contemporary life poses to Queer and Disabled individuals. The paper utilizes silent letters as thematic device to connect notions of precarity to a broader sense of contemporary “doomerism.”
Subterranean Daydreams, Jack Perry
Subterranean Daydreams, Jack Perry
Theses and Dissertations
“Subterranean Daydreams” locates caves, tunnels, passageways, and the subway in particular, as sites of reflection, development and transformation. This paper examines the potential for such sites to aid in imagining the future through the restrained scale of architectural model-size sculpture and short fiction.
Past And Future Winds, Alicia Ehni
Past And Future Winds, Alicia Ehni
Theses and Dissertations
Ehni’s thesis reflects on the role of wind to connect and transform. Looking at science and invisible forces like Earth’s magnetic field, her "Oculus" sculptures evoke old tools for orientation & migration. Birds, insects, plants, roads and sand, appear in a video and an experimental 16mm pinhole film of her bike journey along the Hudson River, NY. “Coordinates”, a magnetic drawing installation, addresses impermanence, attraction to land and fragility. Tracing memories of the Paracas desert in Peru, this thesis follows her interest in alchemy, ecology and the cosmos.
Ripe Spoils, Yan Cynthia Chen
Ripe Spoils, Yan Cynthia Chen
Theses and Dissertations
Chen’s practice primarily focus on sculptures and installation. She explores the interplay between the idea of nature and the constructed environment, by examining how language informs what we know. The central thesis, "Ripe Spoils", employs citrus fruits as symbols for bodily experiences and personal identity, investigating their cultural and historical significance. Her sculptures summon the qualities and embedded meanings in materials like paper pulp and clay, wax and citrus fruits, often resulting in abstracted forms evocative of the human body. This thesis paper and exhibition reflect on themes like mortality and the essence of self.
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Place-Conscious Vs. Place-Bound, Julie Avetisyan
Place-Conscious Vs. Place-Bound, Julie Avetisyan
Theses and Dissertations
Julie Avetisyan’s installation of sculptures, paintings and printmaking works are driven by an exploration of constructed identity that is not place-bound, but place-conscious. In this paper, she explores how her art practice generates world building under the context of the Armenian Diaspora – considering histories of indigeneity, migration, and assimilation.
Shinners, Alexis E. Mabry
Shinners, Alexis E. Mabry
Theses and Dissertations
Shinners is a project that aims to examine the position of women in subcultures and capture conversations of women in subcultural sports. Within feminism, sociological constructs, campy horror, and personal experience I am manifesting the physical and mental obstacles faced in the subcultural sport of Bicycle Motocross (BMX) through photography, painting, collage, video, and sculpture. I interpret images posted to social media of injuries obtained while riding BMX as forms of empowerment, bodily gore as extreme evidence of participation, performative violence, valorizing the understanding of both the physical and psychological pain of failure, and the use of failure as a …
Fear Of God: Exploring Transformative Potential, Misunderstanding, Systemic Challenges, And The Future., Jermaine Ollivierre
Fear Of God: Exploring Transformative Potential, Misunderstanding, Systemic Challenges, And The Future., Jermaine Ollivierre
Theses and Dissertations
This personal journey is a testament to the transformative power of play within my practice. It is a love story between me and the institution, sparked by my fervor for communal creativity in a graduate school environment. Through creative endeavors like public art installations and silent artist talks, I confront racial dynamics and institutional reluctance to engage with complex issues like Black Lives Matter. My personal experiences of alienation are woven into the broader themes of community building, communication, and systemic change. I navigate the complexities of group mentality and exclusion by deliberately using unconventional forms of expression, such as …
Politics Of Being A Lover: In Art, (Space) And Kink, Rabeeha Adnan
Politics Of Being A Lover: In Art, (Space) And Kink, Rabeeha Adnan
Theses and Dissertations
Politics of being a lover: in art, (space) and kink explores my relationship with my practice through observations and stories that draw parallels with romance and kink. Narrated as love affairs turned into complex commitment, it shuffles through logics of structural power, control, and communication in the context of praxis and art institutions.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Twenty. Twenty-One. Twenty-One. Twenty-Three. Twenty-Four. Twenty-Five. Twenty-Six., Liza Lacroix
Theses and Dissertations
"One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Twenty. Twenty-one. Twenty-one. Twenty-three.Twenty-four. Twenty-five. Twenty-six." is a biographical fiction of violence toward the protagonist. Comprised of writing, audio, documentation and intervention. This text is the first iteration, and the thesis work is the second iteration of the same.
Dulce Sueños De Tierra, Sweet Dreams Of Earth, Jordany Genao
Dulce Sueños De Tierra, Sweet Dreams Of Earth, Jordany Genao
Theses and Dissertations
Jordany's paper congregates their archival research into an art practice that examines the decolonial impulse to excavate the self and produce autonomy. Using ceramics to reference and re-animate Taino ritual objects found in museums, resulting in alternative museology, their work seeks to honor Caribbean ancestors by subverting colonial history.
Or Read The Wikipedia Entry For The Parable Of The Tower Of Babel But Imagine It’S 2023 This Time And We’Re Getting So Close Just Give The Artist A Little More Of Your Money, David Thonis
Theses and Dissertations
Systems and their inherent design underlie everything in contemporary life. Design exists to facilitate interaction, to ease workflow, to keep us producing. As such, it exerts its own control.
Through disassembling recurring conventions in design, I look to break with preconceptions of logic. To deny functionality. In doing so, my intention is to dislocate the user from the usual patterns of applicable systems.
The resulting discomfort may feel strange, disembodied, but it should be embraced. Long have capitalism’s solutions created more problems. In the face of this complexity, and beyond it, there can be freedom.
Contact Sheet, Jiwoong Jang
Contact Sheet, Jiwoong Jang
Theses and Dissertations
Jiwoong’s thesis paper is a field guide to how he navigates his curiosity with photography, sound, sculpture, ceramic, and installation. Connecting fragments through narrative vignettes, he underscores how chance, walking, light, time, and uncertainty inform his art.
Skin Echoes, Andreia Santana
Skin Echoes, Andreia Santana
Theses and Dissertations
Santana’s explores the intersection of biology and identity, incorporating living matter and performative gestures into installations to reflect on social constructs of history and gender. By observing water and its qualities of defying Western dichotomies, Skin Echoes focuses on the material interchanges across bodies and the wider material world.
Future Trash, Xinan Ran
Future Trash, Xinan Ran
Theses and Dissertations
Xinan Ran explores the politically different, yet similar cultural habits that China and the US share under the influence of late-stage capitalism. Through her handmade, speculative products inspired by novelty gadgets, or “Unitaskers,” she examines the heightened prevalence of the contemporary wellness market. The project “Future Trash” encompasses soft sculptures, printed materials, performance, and installation.
Bloody Show, Leonie Weber
Bloody Show, Leonie Weber
Theses and Dissertations
Leonie Weber reflects on how reproductive, domestic, and emotional labor is addressed in her artwork, and her experience as an artist-parent in the art world. Moreover, she specifically discusses mothers who are navigating their own artistic paths. Her practice encompasses sculpture, printmaking, performance, and installation.
Subject To Change, Shauna Steinbach
Subject To Change, Shauna Steinbach
Theses and Dissertations
Making visible what is often unseen, muted, or ignored, Shauna Steinbach discusses the unscientific models that make up their sculpture and installation practice. Steinbach’s work explores philosophical thoughts and inquiries surrounding imprints, impermanence, and interdependence. The deaths are small until they are big.
Half Of Two Hungers, Aida A. Lizalde Rios
Half Of Two Hungers, Aida A. Lizalde Rios
Theses and Dissertations
Abstract
half of two hungers is an extension of my sculptural practice; a weaving of the ambiguous borders of memory, trauma, disease, identity, assimilation, survival, spirituality, love, erotics, and desire. It is a psychological and sensorial landscape, where I travel consciously and subconsciously to pull shapes and material experiences out into the world of bodies and objects.
Welcome To The Sitting Garden At The Busy Hands Museum, Stacie Sabady
Welcome To The Sitting Garden At The Busy Hands Museum, Stacie Sabady
Theses and Dissertations
I wanted to attend VCU to learn how to unravel my mind and find the words to describe it. While I did make progress in that area, my surprise discovery is that I need to unravel my body too. It has become unbalanced from years of neglect. When working, I find solace through escape. I find a positive outlet for my perfectionist tendencies. I find a way to visually illustrate my obsessive qualities. Throughout the years of these findings, I have ignored my body pleading with me to take it easy. I have always honored the materials and the tools, …
Waiting To Exhale, Abigail H. Ogle
Waiting To Exhale, Abigail H. Ogle
Theses and Dissertations
We breathe as a measure of time, it keeps us alive, and fabricates the pattern of our lives. We are punctuated by “snarls,” “glitches,” or moments of irregularity – of trying to catch one's breath, having it taken away, or gasping for it. It is the punctuation of sighs, huffs, sniffs, scoffs, screams, and deep intakes that appear as glitches in the breathing system.
In our daily rhythm of breathing, the presence of the glitch, defined as potentiality, can create space for something unexpected or new to arise. Using the wind from fans and approximately 1,260 square feet of silk, …
The Game Of Absolute, Rupeng Zhao
The Game Of Absolute, Rupeng Zhao
Theses and Dissertations
My thesis paper writing is a collection of short stories. Or it could be thought of as a small magazine or even an instruction manual for my work. There is a loose correspondence between its content and the symbols used in my installations. It is also realistically and physically presented in my exhibition as part of a "game box". The chaotic and contradictory narrative of this collection of short stories stems from my exhaustive pursuit of the elements that I try to approach in each story. This insatiable pattern of compulsive organization is also evident in the content of my …
“For My Will Is As Strong As Yours And My Kingdom As Great”, Anna L. Cone
“For My Will Is As Strong As Yours And My Kingdom As Great”, Anna L. Cone
Theses and Dissertations
My work responds to trauma, systems of power and abuses of power. The pieces give materiality to unseen labor and devalued knowledge, often disseminated from the “feminine,” domestic spaces of kitchens and baths, through practices of magic, astrology, ritual and baking. My materials–jello, hair and kitchen ingredients–refer to complex histories, brought present through film and performance.
Micro-Metropolis: Space, Work, And Waste In The Maquettes Of Constant And Bodys Isek Kingelez, Shoshanah B. Rosen
Micro-Metropolis: Space, Work, And Waste In The Maquettes Of Constant And Bodys Isek Kingelez, Shoshanah B. Rosen
Theses and Dissertations
Constant Nieuwenhuys and Bodys Isek Kingelez both create futuristic utopias in the form of architectural maquettes. This comparative study explores each artist’s reverence for technology, global connectivity, and new forms of economic production. It argues that these utopias represent desires endemic to late modernity and capitalism, including consumption, nomadism, automation.
Water Bearer, Whitney Harris
Water Bearer, Whitney Harris
Theses and Dissertations
My work explores fantasy and mythological archetypes. The exhibition features works on paper depicting mermaids, and a fountain featuring two figures submerged in water, one spitting into the other's mouth. I use black ink and glazes to create variegated surfaces. In these works, I reimagine ideas about power and intimacy.
Play Among The Shadows, Xiong Wei
Play Among The Shadows, Xiong Wei
Theses and Dissertations
This article elaborates Xiong Wei's inspiration and experience from different cultural, political, social systems and art environment as a Chinese artist living in the United States, and the logic and methodology of how he went from a social realist sculptor to a contemporary artist.
Long Time, Jacob V. Reed
Long Time, Jacob V. Reed
Theses and Dissertations
Jake Reed’s work is driven by the idea that architectural ornament can be imbued with meaning not native to its construction or use. To find that meaning, he deconstructs and reassembles elements from the architectural and ornamental histories he studies, using the growing climate crisis as a generative framework.
Dregs / Lessons From The Things Around Us, Juan-Manuel Pinzon
Dregs / Lessons From The Things Around Us, Juan-Manuel Pinzon
Theses and Dissertations
The writing in Lessons From the Things Around Us is in support of the work in my MFA thesis show, dregs. I detail the progression of my making and thinking over the last two years. I expand on the material and personal relationships that have manifested themselves in the work and influenced my approach to the things that surround me. Finally, I point to a more expansive definition of Craft, rooted in its material sensibilities, and the possibilities already present in the field that this definition creates.
Until One Resembles The Other, Chad E. Mundie Jr.
Until One Resembles The Other, Chad E. Mundie Jr.
Theses and Dissertations
A written accompaniment to Chad Mundie’s thesis exhibition titled Until One Resembles the Other, conceived during the years 2021-22 and installed at The Anderson Gallery, Richmond from April 9-22nd.
The following writing explores themes of labor within the home, generational knowledge, interiority, exteriority, and emotional residue through a series of essays surrounding areas of interest within my practice. The writing concludes with documentation of the show and an accompanying explanatory text.
A Gun For Every Woman, Gentë Retkoceri
A Gun For Every Woman, Gentë Retkoceri
Theses and Dissertations
Six centuries ago in Kosova, my home country, unmarried women known as sworn virgins, were forced to adopt a male persona and carry a gun to protect themselves. But today, guns have become tools of oppression and violence against women. And while the legal system carries penalties for domestic violence, marital rape is excluded. To shine a light on, and expose the topic of hidden violence, my thesis uses artivism to address a sensitive but provocative issue, exhibiting a large-scale sculpture of a gun, designed to provoke raw emotions; to challenge visitors to consider the terror felt by women threatened …
It Takes A Muscle: Wholes, Holes, And Other Voids, Saar Shemesh
It Takes A Muscle: Wholes, Holes, And Other Voids, Saar Shemesh
Theses and Dissertations
IT TAKES A MUSCLE1
In the BELLY of the BEAST, the HUMAN
in the deep end of a SWIMMING POOL
in a GRAVE, looking up/out from within
at the base of a CRATER, ABYSS, PIT
the room as a CRADLE, INCUBATOR
architecture as MOTHER MOULD.2
____________________________
1 Title is borrowed and abbreviated: Spectral Display, “It Takes A Muscle To Fall In Love,” 1982.
2 For what American-English delineates as ‘mold,’ British-English uses ‘mould’ and is more specific in its technicality. The former doesn’t distinguish in spelling between mold (fungus) and mold (mould). I’m not particularly a fan of …
Spectrum Of Shit, Hannah Hiaasen
Spectrum Of Shit, Hannah Hiaasen
Theses and Dissertations
Contending with the loss of a parent to a mass shooting in their workplace, a newsroom, I find myself suspended in time, in an office. Post-its, fans, button-ups, snow globes, clipboards, reporters notebooks, scrap paper, jot downs, keyboards hold me up. I crave the comfort of repetitive cumulative hand work. Quilting, weaving, and cutting away help me breathe, haptically process and memorialize these grieving objects, this grieving person. Weed-wacking towards intimacy, my work employs a range of materials to mourn the mundanity of a workday, fantasize transformative justice, and steward embodied grief to the surface. My only speed is slow-- …