Art and Design Commons^™

Seth Czaplewski Thesis, Seth P. Czaplewski

Graduate School of Art Theses

My work investigates the history of production and how human interactions have been affected by shifts in production over the course of the past two hundred years in the United States: the pre-industrial, Industrial Revolution, and the post-industrial age. The changes that occurred in society as a result of how production shifted from era to era informs my artistic practice and productions, which address areas neglected in the wake of progress. At the onset of each era, the technological advances initially appeared to be beneficial to society and people shifted from being locally oriented to being globally oriented.

My historical …

A Composed Space, Adam S. Hogan

Graduate School of Art Theses

My practice is invested in expanding our conscious scope—revealing phenomena and observations, and presenting the information to the viewer through auxiliary channels. Using the language of minimalism, cinema, and abstraction I create technologically sophisticated systems to produce spaces of contemplation (a meditative space challenging the ephemeral relationships between our sensorial perceptions, space, and time).

Material, space, and technology become instruments for composition manifesting as silent experimental cinema (created and controlled sonically). My work seeks to illuminate our conscious scope through the succession of frames.

Expedition, Evan M. Crankshaw

Graduate School of Art Theses

Exoticism presents fantasy constructs of Otherness which make up a discourse of problematic “truths.” This discourse is reflected and perpetuated in culture-items (art, literature, music, etc.) which can be identified as “exotica.” On one level, exotica simply reinforces these “truths,” but it also offers potential revelations relating to the exotic construct itself, a collection of fictions so elaborate and vast that it may be said to have its own history. Exotica can be described as the reflexive form of that alternate history; it is also a fantasy zone which reveals a desire on the part of the exoticizer to escape …

Violence Against Women: An Artistic Intervention, Kathryn Douglas

Graduate School of Art Theses

We have many tools available to impede violence against women. Legislative circles, educational systems, and advocacy groups all work tirelessly to eradicate these heinous crimes and serve the victims of abuse. However violence against women is still described as “‘the most pervasive human rights challenge’ in the world today”.¹

For some it can be difficult to view socially engaged art making as an essential component of women’s advocacy compared to immediate housing, legal counsel, help hotlines, and the education of women. Blurring the lines between activism and art history, this relatively new art form is often embraced by marginalized …

Desire And Fantasy: The Conditions Of Reality Between The Self And The Other, Raleigh M. Gardiner

Graduate School of Art Theses

The human condition is constituted by the fluctuating operations of desire and fantasy, which emerge in response to one's fundamental differentiation between 'Self' and 'Other.' As infants, we exist in an expansive realm of sensational “sameness” with the world around us; but as we develop, we quickly learn to differentiate between our internal and external worlds, and are forced to divide and organize our once primordial experience of unity on the basis of isolated exclusion of difference. As we slip into the structures of our social and cultural reality, we absorb language, and are taught to construct our own identities …

In Pursuit Of Distant Horizons, Whitney Polich

Graduate School of Art Theses

Our lasting human desire to rationalize the phenomena of nature manifests as ceaseless attempts to fix fluid landscapes within the rigid boundaries of an image. Each landscape with its own physical language, rooted in the temporal and subjective particularities of sense—taste, touch, smell, sound, and sight—requires a lived immersion to be read and as such, eludes static interpretation or expression. The physical horizon provides both a physical and metaphorical reminder of the limits we constantly find ourselves confronted with—those limits of perception, language, and knowledge—as we seek to expresses the immediate experience and profound vastness of a world far exceeding …

Art That Demonstrates: Action And Contemplation, David J. Baker

Graduate School of Art Theses

Abstract

Our culture is permeated with "noise" that detracts from what really matters: a life of helping others. By making an effort to save time for reflection and contemplation, artists, who actively define our contemporary culture, can greatly benefit society and offer an alternative to this "noise." By focusing on ethical considerations and transforming one's core values, artists can begin to demonstrate the self-sacrificing qualities that assist and enlighten a society. This thesis examines some crucial spiritual and artistic works that counter the distractions that keep people from living the lives they were meant to live. Further, it describes how …

Exodus Hd, Christopher J. Thompson

Graduate School of Art Theses

To express the dramaticism of the themes in my work, I have written the following document in a pseudo-satirical voice, expressing both my interest in science fiction and my own eagerness to accept the profoundness of the Internet’s connectivity in my life. The sensational nature of the writing is both prophetic and personal, conflating manticism with art making. Due to the interlacing of the web’s influence with our individual lives, we must pay tribute to its power and guidance through endorsements of search engines and online marketplaces that have built a new world of convenience. This world of convenience is …

Painting And Stuff, Lol, Sopearb Touch

Graduate School of Art Theses

Our own human experience is a distinct realm which can never be precisely duplicated in another lifetime. It frames our whole view of existence and, as artists, affects our art making process. The theory of the Tabula Rasa functions as the inspiration of my work and this writing examines my personal view of growing up in the internet age and America, and how my view of life, as well as artistic practice, is shaped by a consumerist culture that has gone global. Additionally, as a figurative painter, I create a context with other artists who create work about their own …

Suppressing My Inner Caravaggio, Nathan A. Childs

Graduate School of Art Theses

FULK ART is a body of work that stems out of the divisions and segments of the constructed narrative germane to the notions of "art world" and "art worlds". In his theses Nathan Childs argues that his contemporary studio practice is not rooted in the post production criticism of his objects. Rather his art is a "techne" that hybridizes his daily habits as rituals of making. These rituals are self reverent inspections of multi sided issues, set into a dynamic state. The "third side" of the coin device is a habit of life style that allows Childs to reach deeper …

Mechanical Communication Guts -- . -.-. .... .- -. .. -.-. .- .-.. / -.-. --- -- -- ..- -. .. -.-. .- - .. --- -. / --. ..- - ..., Cole (Pei-Yu) Lu

Graduate School of Art Theses

Aesthetics can be proposed through language. Metaphysical experience through technology is an accumulation of information. My practice accentuates the failure of languages that are mediated through technology. Using readymade objects as a signifier for collective experience, I create sets for films that have never existed. Rooted in the conceptual terrain, I seek to concretize the intangible, my sculptural installation was assembled by objects conceived as unknown, or coded messages, and largely applied the color matte black. Matte black, for its non-color, accomplishes openness – freedom. The immersive experience of darkness also echoes with the cinematic environment. Ultimately, my work functions …

Silence And Slow Time, Steve W. G. Byrnes

Graduate School of Art Theses

This thesis explores abstract painting from the perspective of a material based production, drawing parallels from poetry to augment its position. Building upon existing material-driven painting traditions such as Abstract Expressionism, and examining their physiological affects from a scientific perspective, it aims to substantiate a more corporeal approach to understanding and interacting with painting.

Reemit Vexing Truces Struck, Defiled, And Rehung, Sean E. Fitzgibbons

Graduate School of Art Theses

Within his studio practice Sean FitzGibbons imposes limitations upon his processes, methods of sourcing materials, and fabrication of artwork. He relies on the viewer to apply their personal narrative to his work. Through a bricoleur approach to creating artwork, he uses signifiers to clue the viewer into his intended narratives, but people come to his work with varying life experiences, and therefore generate their own stories. The act of constructing a narrative within Sean’s work is a rigorous and performative process; the rigor he applies to creating a fictional universe gives his work authenticity. Treating his studio the same way …

You Can't Roller Skate In A Buffalo Herd, Daniel Stumeier

Graduate School of Art Theses

Works and writings from various fields will be discussed throughout the following thesis, including those from contemporary art, anthropology, ethnology and literary theory. Particular attention will be paid to my studio practice as well as the work of artists: Amy Sillman, Eva Hesse, Richard Tuttle, Jackson Pollock, Donald Judd, Mary Heilmann, Haim Steinbach, Mike Kelley and Marcel Duchamp. Other important materials and texts that will be used to support my argument include: the 2007 group exhibition “Unmonumental: The Object in the 21^st Century” at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, poet and art critic Raphael Rubenstein’s essay, “Provisional Painting,” …

Artificial Landscapes: Reflecting Interior Worlds, Vivian Zapata

Graduate School of Art Theses

In this study I examine ideas of nature, human nature, and artificial nature that are relevant to my work. I explain that the natural realm is a physical presence in the world and that it is also a cultural construct. My work is concerned with metaphorical representations of nature and I contextualize my artwork within the work of modern and contemporary artists who create artificial representations of nature that reference landscapes. I relate that I am disturbed by our current culture’s inharmonious relationship with the natural realm and explain how my work opposes our cultural anthropocentrism and the collective assumption …