Art and Design Commons^™

Hype And Hypersexuality: Kara Walker, Her Work And Controversy, Erikka Juliette Searles

Art and Design Theses

Kara Walker, winner of the MacArthur “Genius” award and the Smithsonian Lucelia award, is one of the most critically acclaimed contemporary African American artists. Her work, especially her cut-paper silhouettes depicting grotesque antebellum scenes, has inspired as much outrage from an older generation of Black artists as acclaim from the mainstream media. This thesis gives an overview of the artist’s life, analysis of some of her works, and an examination of the controversy her work has caused. In the conclusion, I introduce the next generation of Black American artists, self-proclaimed “Art Stars,” including Atlanta artist Fahamu Pecou.

Janine Antoni: Finding A Room Of Her Own, Stacie M. Lindner

Art and Design Theses

Janine Antoni's object- and performance-based works draw from multiple influences including feminism and conceptualism, and in these works the artist has fashioned an investigation of the self through the examination of the mother/child dyad, creating a more than fourteen-year body of work about these relationships that explore the implications of feminine imagery. Antoni’s works are an effort to distinguish her body as a feminine subject-object, but also to identify with as well as separate herself from the mother. While she is a conceptual artist, Antoni puts great emphasis on materiality. For her, the concept defines itself within the materials, and …

Art, The Social Enzyme: The Emergence Of An Art Community In The Rio Grande Valley, Heaven Lashley

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This study explores the emergence of an art community in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) region of South Texas. In researching this objective, I relied on observations at many gallery public functions where I had the opportunity to observe the interactions between prospective buyers, gallery owners and artists. I also visited with gallery owners and artists many times in small group settings where I raised open ended questions about the region's artists and other historical developments that would allow me to put together a cohesive story about the emergence of the art community

This study began as an unstructured exploration …

Busted Flat Tire Mobility, Oscar F. Martinez

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The work presented in Busted Flat Tire Mobility is an attempt to promote awareness about problems afflicting our modern society. Seizing on the opportunity to present my concerns through artwork addressing the issue of poverty in this culture, I hope to present an emotional and inspiring representation of the lives of those people whom inhabit the "Invisible America". This exhibition paper presents my belief that art can be a revolutionary tool in which to motivate people to act.

The Unconventional Photographic Self-Portraits Of John Coplans, Carla Williams, And Laura Aguilar, Alice Di Certo

Art and Design Theses

Laura Aguilar, John Coplans, and Carla Williams explore, through photographic self-portraiture, the representation of unconventional bodies. Even though the images produced by these artists are quite different in style, they all reflect an interest in a representation of the nude human body that challenges the traditional concepts of beauty so prevalent in a Western society obsessed with physical perfection. Even though the three artists produced their photographic self-portraits at roughly the same time, using the traditional gelatin silver process and responding to standards of classical beauty, their divergent life experiences, education, and social backgrounds have led them to question an …

Pre-Islamic Influences On Fatimid And Seljuk Jewelry, Badriya Yasmeen Dowe

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Dynamic Force, Motion, And Life In Digital Design., James Michael Livingston

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this paper is to explore specific works that I have created as it relates to digital art and design. My works include abstract, organic objects that exist within surrealistic environments. First, I explain the dynamics of the imagery that has emerged from my career in broadcast television, my coursework in the Department of Art and Design at East Tennessee State University, and the works of fantasy, surreal, and abstract artists. In conclusion, the images discussed impose an idea of abstraction and surrealism with a sense of force, motion, life, and dynamic action.

A Designer’S Process, Emily Derr

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The objective of my thesis was to design a collection of six garments and produce one made from fabric I developed using Silk Cloqué which involves felting wool in between two layers of silk gauze. The process was initially developed by David and Dorita Reyen of Reyen Design Studio based on the work of textile designer Polly Stirling. I became interested in Silk Cloqué when the Reyens were selling their work in Slocum Hall. In fall 2004, I began working with them. My first experience working with Silk Cloqué was at one of the Reyen’s scarf workshops. My other experiences …

An Original Line Of Bridesmaids’ Dresses, Mae Polson

Honors Capstone Projects - All

A line of original bridesmaids’ dresses began as a market research project for Lara Hélène Bridal Atelier inNew York City. I was to research information on current clientele and find out what they were looking for in a bridesmaid’s dress. In doing my research I sourced books on brides and weddings, internet wedding sites, conducted surveys, and took personal interviews with the founders of Lara Hélène. The market research turned into a concept to design an original line of bridesmaids’ dresses that filled a void for a unique and elegant collection that fit into Lara Hélène’s company image.

Following the …

Exploring Spaces: A Series Of Video Experiments, Nicholas R. Kinling

Honors Capstone Projects - All

My overall intention of this project was use the Honors Thesis Project to apply what I have learned while studying art video to create a collection of successful videos that allow me to work above and beyond the art video curriculum. I was eager to work independently on a long-term project, and the Honors Thesis Project provided me with both an exciting and challenging opportunity to display my academic initiative and creative drive.

Upon completion of the thesis project, I selected six video art pieces that I felt were most successful and relevant to the project theme. The theme of …

Pictorial And Spiritual Spaces A Personal Journey Through Painting And Meditation, Brendon Palmer-Angell

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The way that an artist works is directly affected by the way that they perceive and interact with their surroundings. My work over the past year has dealt with the way that I perceive different universal aspects of human experience such as death, separation and personal motivation. The work itself consists of large representational figurative paintings executed in acrylic, oil and various drawing mediums on canvas, linen, or illustration board. Each piece is preceded by a number of preparatory drawings in which space, characters, and narrative evolve.

The way that I approach subject matter and the execution of paintings has …

A History Of Twentieth-Century Handmade Metalsmithing In Europe And America, Ruth Koelewyn

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The author traces the development of modern and artistic themes in metalwork of the Western world throughout the twentieth century. The argument is that metalsmithing from 1900 to 2000 reacted to the rapid mechanization and the technological developments of the period. The results are uniquely modern, and differ immensely from the work done before the Industrial Revolution. The twentieth century was thus a period in which the styles changed dramatically but also had common themes. Through careful examination, the author points out these commonalities, and concludes that technology has pushed the field of contemporary handmade metalsmithing out of the crafts …

Horse Saddles For Adaptive Riders, Mark Rogers

Honors Capstone Projects - All

“Hippos” is the Greek word for horse. “Hippotherapy” literally means treatment with the help of the horse. In this field specially trained, licensed physical therapists, occupational therapists and speech language pathologists use the special nature of a horse to help clients meet their therapy needs. This project investigates the process of making therapeutic progress on horseback. It describes the field of hippotherapy and presents a new saddle design to make the process of therapy more effective. My design process started out with broad user research. Video camera in hand, I went to observe a form of hippotherapy called Adaptive Riding …

Pirate Story, Jake T. Powell

Honors Capstone Projects - All

What is children’s cinema? This thesis explores this question by identifying three codes of children’s film and illuminating them through a short film entitled “Pirate Story.” The film is about a boy and his grandfather, and the pirates that inhabit a bedtime story. The pirates compete with the grandfather to have narrative authority over their own existence. This film examines the role of the narrator, use of animation, and absence of the parental figures as elements that are signifiers of children’s cinema. It was shot on HD video, with animation created in After Effects. Production also involved creation of a …

A Marionette's Dream, Veronica R. Jaeger

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

As an artist, I believe there is an open awareness and sensibility toward everything experienced in life which manifests through the spirit in form and imagery. Jean-Paul Sartre's affirmation, "You are nothing else but what you live", encloses the general concepts of my artwork and the starting point of my continuous questioning about existence and life, making a personal interpretation based on my own experiences and the spiritual concepts of eastern and western philosophies as Buddhism, Taoism, Existentialism, and Christianity. I had been an observer of the outside filtered through my own senses and beliefs, translated into the language of …

Micro_Cosmos, Rachael E. Freyman Brown

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This exhibition thesis and its accompanying exhibition invite the viewer to contemplate large and small connections to nature in our lives. How are backyard gardens a metaphor for the way our culture thinks of or treats nature and the environment? Do we have personal or spiritual connections to the land, plants, and the ecosystem, or do we see them merely as products for our use? The work in micro _COSMOS is an attempt to balance and unite paradoxes: the spiritual within the everyday, the natural and the constructed, and to come to terms with the constant cycle of regeneration in …

Innovation & Inspiration Tunnel, Bridget Noel Bybee

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

I intend to create one large scale permanent work for Utah State University as fulfillment for the senior thesis of my Honors degree. The site that has been approved for this project is the tunnel under HWY 89 connecting the student B parking lot to the eastern most end of campus where the art and engineering departments are located. This high traffic area is ugly, uninviting, and currently in need of repair. The site is perfect in its nature as a tunnel that leads towards the new School of the Arts and, thus it is an exquisite site for a …

Paul Renner And Futura: The Effects Of Culture, Technology, And Social Continuity On The Design Of Type For Printing, Charles C. Leonard

Art and Design Theses

This thesis reviews the circumstances that led to what Paul Renner called “the inflation of historicism,” places his response to that problem in the context of the Weimar Republic, details how the German attributes with which he began the project were displaced from the typeface that emerged in 1927, demonstrates that Futura belongs to a new category of serif-less roman fonts rooted in Arts and Crafts lettering, and considers why the specifically German aspects of the project have gone unrecognized for over seventy years. Renner’s writing is compared to ideas prevalent in early twentieth-century German cultural discourse, and Futura’s design …

The Other Side Of The Fence, Benjamin S. Jones

Theses and Dissertations

I pull from what I see in my urban surroundings. There is always a sense of dread fused with optimism that prevails. Is it beautiful? Fragments of low-riders and tricked-out cars become symbols of desire and the glowing red lens of a stop light becomes a Cyclops poised to defend his garden. Candy-coated, blooming, dripping and seductively slick confronts you with the obvious warning: STOP! You could be next… …The grass really is greener on The Other Side of the Fence. At least until winter comes.

State Of Being, Anne Bradshaw

Theses and Dissertations

My work speaks to the processes of adaptation and assimilation, phenomena that explain the way in which we transform life experience and incorporate the effects of such experience into the daily workings of our psyche. To this extent my work is a self-analysis, an autobiographical reckoning, a non-verbal representation of collective experiences rendered in forms upon which images are spontaneously drawn or painted with fiber. The process of making art as a means of accessing creative instincts is a manifestation of the way in which I experience life. Adapting and assimilating to our human condition is an art, a form …

Healing Interior: Using Eastern Design Principles In Hotel Design, Yunju Lee Koh

Theses and Dissertations

The main goal of this thesis is to explore how interior spaces in hotel designs can provide a less stressful environment and promote health and harmony by using Feng Shui Principles. It will first discuss the principles of Feng Shui and general hotel design, and then move on to demonstrate how the application of Feng Shui principles can be used to create a hotel environment that encourages health and harmony in its occupants. This project will demonstrate principles that not only can be applied to hotel space, but also can be practiced in any other interior space. This thesis, therefore, …

Everyday Haunting, Thomas John Condon Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

This document outlines a journey of self-exploration, discovery, construction and destruction. It is a story of learning, a testament to impermanence, and a proposal for possibility. The words and work contained in this document are exclusive to the thoughts and actions of one man that hopes to share with others.

Dirty Laundry, Mona Mullins Williams

Theses and Dissertations

Making art is cathartic for me. Working in a visual medium allows me to communicate ideas and feelings that I would find difficult to express in words. I use a wide variety of traditional and non-traditional materials as symbolic elements in my work. While the pieces are not always pretty, my goal is that they contain an element of irony and humor which helps us laugh at ourselves.

Drawing Through A Linear Temperament, Jorge Miguel Benitez

Theses and Dissertations

I am a draftsman, painter and printmaker. This first person statement is a written extension of the art that constitutes my thesis. It discusses the links between my work and the Enlightenment, Humanism, Catholicism, ethics and the Western canon as well as my use of perspective and other classical techniques in relation to history, language, high art, popular culture, propaganda, contemporary upheavals, Christian and Islamic Fundamentalism, globalization and the digital revolution. Furthermore, the main arguments draw upon my Cuban origin and European ancestry, the Cuban Revolution, my Belgian early education and eventual American hybrid identity. The overriding theme, however, concerns …

Investigations Into Social Game Theory, Stephen Bryce Harper

Theses and Dissertations

Investigations into Social Game Theory is a document that describes my two-year exploration of the ritual encapsulated in our societal framework. It discusses the thoughts and processes that accompanied the three bodies of work that led to the creation of my final thesis exhibition.

From The Edge, Leslie Corder Rousseau

Theses and Dissertations

Paintings and drawings are the physical representations of my dialogue with the world around me. Art is how I connect to what is too large, or too vague, or too personally meaningful to express in any other way. Space and its transformation by light and color have always been central to this dialogue. I am particularly intrigued by spatial ambiguity. Space exists for us only in how it relates to us and so, space changes. One viewpoint or state of mind might make space seem freeing, while another makes the same space feel confining. Barriers are sometimes delineated, sometimes obscured. …

Conceptual Packaging, Thirada Raungpaka

Theses and Dissertations

Packaging and package design is commonly thought of as a tool to attract the consumer to material goods. Packages, however, have other attributes. In Japan, packaging design is very charming because of the delicate selection of materials, images, and interaction. Different kinds of material provide different emotions and appeal to our sense of touch, which can be interpreted in many ways. Packaging lets us directly interact with an object and this experience becomes memorable and intimate. The combination of image and interaction creates another dimension of story telling. My creative project, Conceptual Packaging, is an experiment in using materials and …

Public: An Exploration Of Community, Environment, And Technology, Christopher John Malven

Theses and Dissertations

This project examines the potential of computer technology to enhance navigation within, and incorporate information-sharing into, the public urban environment.

The Enduring Image, Michelle Lieb

Theses and Dissertations

In my work, I have chosen to pursue the antiquated, experimental, and alternative processes of photography. A digital image, a web page, an e-book all point to the current pace of a society concerned with the beauty it can access in a moment of instant gratification. It often has no regard for a process that requires personal discipline to capture a moment, a place, or an idea. I find little enjoyment in the immediate, when I can instead experience what happens when the combination of chemicals, glass, wood, and the environment turn a potential photograph into an inimitable encounter. It …

A Shift In Perspective, Andrew Patrick Ilnicki

Theses and Dissertations

Responsible design practice should include environmental advocacy and a focus on community — subjects often lacking in design education. My creative project is the result of investigations into how designers integrate nature into their design process. By increasing their awareness for communal and environmental advocacy at the undergraduate level, students can develop responsible design practices at the beginning of their career. The result is the student's accumulation of integrity.