Painting Commons^™

(Not) Knowing, Jared Friedman

Theses and Dissertations

Jared Friedman’s work creates monuments out of banal common objects. Through acrylic paintings on- Astroturf, burlap, canvas, and upholstery fabric- he explores the ambiguity of the unremarkable, such as the condenser coils on the back of a refrigerator. In, (Not) Knowing, he parses the difference between knowing and understanding.

Ambiguity Of Vision: Reimagining The Hypervisible Void, Kiwha Lee Blocman

Theses and Dissertations

Asking questions about what Painting is in the 21st century and the dominant narratives it can challenge, my paintings complicate the viewer’s reading of pictorial hierarchy and the projection of human relations in the world. I de-hierarchize and decentralize the compositional components that make up a painting by using patterns to create spatial depth, not European perspectival conventions. In dialogue with modernists such as Matisse who drew from the visual vocabulary of “The Orient”, my central forms derived from architecture and ornamental fragments possess a body-like presence. Further, I reinvent ancient Asian printmaking processes with oil paint. Observing the tenets …

“Paint What You Hate”: Philip Guston’S Hooded Figures And The Postponement Of The Exhibition Philip Guston Now, Thomas Baldwin

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis interrogates the postponement of the Philip Guston Now exhibition, examining the justification for the postponement, the actions taken by the National Gallery of Art, and the effects of the postponement. My research examines the museum’s choice to cite social justice as the main context for understanding Philip Guston.

Bonded By Nature: The Prevalence Of Landscape Subjects Within Abstract Expressionism And Their Sources In American Art, Aileen F. Marcantonio

Theses and Dissertations

Landscape subjects reappear throughout Abstract Expressionism. Although it is often overlooked, landscapes were perhaps a natural subject for a group of artists that were known to work from their environment. When we focus on the landscape subjects, we gain a better understanding of Abstract Expressionism and its place within the canon of American art.

Ivan Puni's Berlin Period: 1920-1924, Elena Kakuriev

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is dedicated to the work of the Russian Avant-Garde artist Ivan Albertovich Puni (1892-1956): an artist, a theorist and writer, an organizer of exhibition, a teacher of art, and above all, an innovator. This thesis presents an account of the artist's Berlin period (1920-1924), which has so far lacked scholarly attention.

The thesis begins with a close analysis of Puni's Russian period (1914-1919). In this time span,

Ivan Puni demonstrated his ability to adopt a wide gamut of diverse artistic styles. Puni first elaborated works akin to Cubist constructions. However, starting from 1915, the artist became a major …

Bernice Lee Bing’S Art And Spiritual Practice, Lin Ma

Theses and Dissertations

Living and working in northern California between the late 1950s and 1990s, abstract painter Bernice Lee Bing practiced Zen, Nichiren, and Nyingma Buddhism. This thesis studies what the visual and conceptual impact of these spiritual practices had on her abstract and visionary paintings.

Umberto Boccioni's States Of Mind, Sonya Shrier

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines Umberto Boccioni’s series the States of Mind (1911) and discusses how these works represent a breakthrough in the artist’s search to find a pictorial expression for concepts that occupied him throughout his career. The States of Mind exists in four complete iterations each comprised of three images: The Farewells, Those Who Go and Those Who Stay.The first set of oil paintings, begun in late summer of 1911, are in the Divisionist style and are in the collection of the Civica Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Milan. A set of charcoal and contè drawings on paper, likely completed in …

Constraint And Control, Patricia Ayres

Theses and Dissertations

I have long considered themes of the body. Drawing on my knowledge as a fashion designer, I bring materials and hardware from the fashion industry into my artwork transforming and rendering them non-functional. My sculptures relate to stories of isolation, separation, and confinement. The following pages will analyze how the United States penal system controls, constrains and restricts the body through physical and psychological wounds. Furthermore, they will examine how the Catholic Church controls people’s minds and behavior through a ritualistic belief system.

Laminated Paint, Travis R. Austin

Theses and Dissertations

Though we may not perceive it, we are surrounded by material-in-flux. Inert materials degrade and the events that comprise our natural and social environments causally thread into a duration that unifies us in our incomprehension. Sounds reveal ever-present vibrations of the landscape: expressions of the flexuous ground on which we stand.

I Like America: Painting In The Expanded Field, Isaac Aden

Theses and Dissertations

Using Structuralist theory, Krauss created a Klein group diagram. the diagram included site sculpture, construction, marked sites, and axiomatic structures.Could the same strategy be applied to painting? As I attempted to engage painting from a critical perspective, I formed of a body of work entitled Painting in the Expanded Field.