Art and Design Commons^™

Warmth Of The Sun, Drake M. Gerber

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Warmth of the Sun, is a reflection on personal experiences I’ve had in the landscape while living in the Northwest. This curated experience is an attempt to capture my sincerity towards a place and hold onto that feeling. I intend to share faded memories of personal experiences through enigmatic sculptures to make the viewer look a bit closer at these objects and see the landscape in a new way. This paper explores thoughts on the idea of place, material, process, contemporary influences, and the experiences that inspired this body of work.

Current(S), Austin Raye Navrkal

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Current(s) addresses my perspective of the subtle changes that happen as the seasons slowly transition to act as a metaphor for the subtle changes that have happened to me over the course of my time in graduate school.

Greetings From..., Casey Mae Schachner

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Greetings from... is a reflection of my roots in the tropical vacationland of Florida, a place for which I feel both nostalgic and conflicted. Growing up in southern tourist destinations, I was confronted daily with the extreme contrasts of living in paradise. In my artwork, I am translating the cacophony of Florida through the lens of materiality. By re-configuring commodified objects of the tourism industry, the sculptural works in this show exhibit my consideration for the paradoxical relationships that exist between materials and place. Much like the avant-garde Surrealist object, or the assemblage of found materials in provocative combinations that …

All Hat & No Cow, Jesse Blumenthal

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

My thesis work, All Hat & No Cowhas been an exploration of End Stage Capitalism and Art/life in the American post-industrial Intermountain West. The research has been presented in one suite with three parts; a Sonic Ecosystem, Community Collaborative Foundry, and Mobile Blacksmithing School. Each of these activities present windows into ongoing (some career long) projects that comprise a diverse practice; different tracks on the same album. The three parts in the suite include technological progressions via the materials and process as the narrative arcs of societal “progression”. Structural welding, architectural blacksmithing, andcommercial foundry work emerged out of industrial …

Lit, Tyler Brumfield

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

LIT investigates the power of our daily visual interactions with commercial signage. The exhibition is comprised of ten individual illuminated constructions that appropriate the aesthetic strategies and design elements from commercial signage. The work offers the viewer a new aesthetic experience by nullifying the communicative and directional agendas that would normally accompany commercial signage. The viewer is free to see and experience the captivating nature of formal elements such as shape, color and light. The work explores the intersection of appropriation, minimal aesthetics and everyday experiences.

Median, Amy Petit

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Median reflects my observation of changing forms of communication in the digital age and how that affects personal interaction, expression, and the value that we assign to objects. The sculptural objects in this exhibit stem from my formative experiences of frequent relocation, as well as a professional background in the fast-paced technological world. These factors, combined with contemplative and repetitive sculptural practices, help illustrate the anxiety and discomfort that can accompany rapid advances in communication practices. My research situates my work within contemporary art by drawing on the relevance of indexical signs, reliquaries, current discussions of communication in the digital …

Cold Lapse, Tressa Jones

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

cold lapse addresses the abstract notions of time and loss while conveying the value of observing the present. The postmodern view of time, the grid’s vernacular, and the aesthetics of postminimalism are my foundation for communicating time’s passage and its consequential sensations of absence. The duration of a slow drip, the cycle of breath and the sequential motion of a hand folding paper each mark passing moments. By observing these signs the phenomenon of time may be appreciated. Care and ephemerality in the work require the viewer’s sensitivity when encountering and witnessing it, much like the demands of observing the …

More Is The Same, Tyler Reeves Nansen

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Nansen, Tyler, M.F.A. Spring 2015

More Is The Same

Chairperson: Associate Professor Trey Hill

More is the Same is the result of my examination of the perception of space in relation to architecture and landscape. By embracing modern concepts of the grid, formalism and design, this compilation of personal experiences and memories, manifests as post-minimal sculptures. However, when considering the hierarchy of importance in my work this involves pure visual perception over any specific narrative. The final product is an exhibition which elicits a perceptual experience for its viewer.

My work is about space and the creation of visual interactions, …