Art and Design Commons^™

Nothing But The Night, Theo Drake Trotter

Senior Projects Spring 2019

I am concerned with fragile, delicate things that have been discarded, used, and left behind. I often think of my work as a sort of a “skin” between myself and the viewer- it hides a lot but also reveals a lot, the way that the skin does on the human body. I think of the way the skin shows traces of a person’s history, of a person’s touch. Because of this my work also has a connection to memory and the act of remembering, which is often fragmentary and connected to small details that only become important long after the …

Consumption, Aurora Blake-Jennings Abzug

Senior Projects Spring 2019

This body of work is neither a chronicle of my eating disorder, nor a record of my recovery. The oil paintings and graphite drawings that make up this exhibition, seek to explore my difficult, complicated, and often self-contradictory relationship with food, and how it affects my relationships with my friends and with myself.

I am particularly interested in eating rituals. These are the sets of cultural prescriptions for the ways in which food and the process of eating can define a social interaction. Ice cream picnics, brunch dates, and Instagram snapshots all lie at the heart of my culture's social …

This Key Won't Work, Grace Gordon Waring

Senior Projects Spring 2019

This Key Won’t Work

I like to play with objects that are thought of as mundane. Either I make mundane objects “un-mundane” by giving them deeper meaning, or I allow their mundaneness to become more conspicuous by putting the objects in extraordinary contexts or by giving them undue symbolic importance.

During the making of this project, I gravitated toward using symbolic or familiar imagery, and the inviting image of a house was a perfect candidate for a familiar image. That is why the subject of many of the drawings I made are houses--anyone can look at that shape with five …

Thanks To You, I'M Alive, Antonio Scott Nichols

Senior Projects Spring 2019

Antonio Nichols

Artist Statement:

In this project I am using figurative painting to explore the meaning of relationships/emotion and my connection to the people I am painting. I question what this means and how each individual’s identity ties to mine and why it may or may not matter. “Thanks to You, I’m Alive,” the title of this project, encompasses the message I am sending not only to the individuals I painted but also to the viewer because there is a certain exclusivity in who I decided to paint.

I want the connection I have with these people to not only …

Through Space, Paige Lauren Eckensberger

Senior Projects Spring 2019

The experience of creating this body of work has been about progress and discovery. My pieces have been formed using lines, shapes, and color, through reactionary processes. Shapes interact with each other, responding to the other elements in the piece, either in sync or in opposition to each other. Some lines are infinite, extending past the limitations of the canvas and implying an extension beyond the work of art itself. In this way, I construct imaginary spatial dimensions that I find myself lost within.

I started this body of work cautious and rigid. By introducing the element of chance into …

Mud Bog: Reconsidering Rural America, Michael Vincent Bodnar

Senior Projects Spring 2019

Mud Bog is an examination of the social and economic realities that present-day Americans living in rural communities endure, and how circumstances beyond their control have prodded them toward narcissistic displays – which can often be troubling expressions of darkness and intolerance.

I hasten to add that my artistic goal is not to wag a finger of disapproval at those depicted, or to punch down at them. I strive to treat this material with sensitivity and empathy. My intent is to shed a light on the conditions that have contributed to the current rancorous state of political and cultural division …

The Holistic Self: A Visual Analysis Of Carl Jung's The Red Book, Emma Lindsay Klement

Senior Projects Spring 2019

This senior project will look at Carl Jung’s The Red Book and how it’s creation was the process by which he healed from his psychotic break, or “deep-sea voyage.” Through the exploration of various other texts by Carl Jung this thesis will endeavor to understand Jung’s psyche during this time of deep turmoil by analyzing the images that he creates and the way in which he creates them. Jung was deeply molded by both Christian doctrine as well as Alchemy and the Occult, thus this project will take into account the specific Christian and alchemical meanings of particular motifs within …