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Full-Text Articles in Art and Design

Paiting, Lucas Page May 2014

Paiting, Lucas Page

Undergraduate Theses—Unrestricted

My work is motivated by the painting “as such” – as an inquiry into and intervention upon what constitutes a painting, how they are constructed, how they function, etc. Through an investigation of painting as a genre, both in its historical canon and contemporary forms, I deconstruct the formal and cultural elements surrounding the field. Four major axes serve as the basis for my inquiry and intervention of painting: Painting, Abstraction, Representation, Control. Taking as a point of departure the comment, “Your work is a representation of abstraction,” I aim to figure out how “the painting” (in all of its …


Creatures Of Habit, Joyce Hankins May 2014

Creatures Of Habit, Joyce Hankins

Undergraduate Theses—Unrestricted

Creatures of Habit is a body of artwork that explores how patterns, habits and records relate to the human desire to find fulfillment and understanding. The work was approached using two distinct ways of making. The first draws upon the concept of a “closed system” to create my own self-contained processes to work within and form imagery around. The second way is responding to pre-existing patterns, or open systems, that allow for a transfer of internal and external information. Open and closed systems represent the human struggle to find control as well as feel connected to the surrounding world. The …


Ergonomically Designing Art Objects, Ambika Subramaniam May 2014

Ergonomically Designing Art Objects, Ambika Subramaniam

Undergraduate Theses—Unrestricted

The following thesis examines the work of Ambika Subramaniam, in particular her thesis installation Ergonomically Designing Art Objects, for the Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture at Washington University in St. Louis. Based within a discussion of semiotics, the thesis researches furniture signification and tracks its evolution through traditional form, ergonomic function, and consumed product. Major points include the ways in which objects are capable of collapsing and retaining the semiotic divide between a sign and referent, and how that signification relates to contemporary design-oriented products. Using the chair as the exemplifying object, the thesis installation questions how objects have …


Countering The Voyage Of The Present: Histories Speak Fragmented In 25 Frames Per Second, Vanessa Kelly Gravenor May 2014

Countering The Voyage Of The Present: Histories Speak Fragmented In 25 Frames Per Second, Vanessa Kelly Gravenor

Undergraduate Theses—Unrestricted

My thesis work presents a meditation on what it means to be contemporary. There are many ideas that prefigure this work but are not included in this written investigation.These notions come from Nietzsche’s Untimely Meditations and Walter Benjamin’s Illuminations. In these texts, the authors state that the contemporary is the one who turns her or his back from her or his time and looks at the past. For my purposes, to be contemporary, one has to revolutionize the notion of histories in order to make past materials relevant. Therefore, my videos and photographic works do not invite the viewer …