Art Practice Commons^™

Fear And Nostalgia In Immigration, Daniel A. Matthews

Theses and Dissertations

Fear and Nostalgia in Immigration is a project that uses re-occuring memory and experiential memory to help us understand our common histories. The projects asks individuals to first share a re-occuring memory by writing it on a chalkboard. The next step is to then write an experiential memory about immigration, this can be a story you might have heard or it could be something from your own family history. These two tasks are done on a communal table where several individuals are engage in the same task at the same time. This aim of this exercise is to have something …

Deaccessioning The Studio, Ayla Rexroth

Theses and Dissertations

I have created several micro-businesses that provide tools and facilitate experiences to help people meet their potential. The form of the businesses has ranged from a street based art gallery inside the drawers of a modern dresser to a business that sews more and bigger pockets into women’s outerwear.

Private Conversation, Gahee Park

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis paper "Private Conversation" discusses the themes, contexts, and influences relevant to paintings and drawings I made during my MFA studies.

Iain Muirhead, Iain Muirhead

CGU MFA Theses

Artist IAIN MUIRHEAD seeks possibility in a world of massive change. His work cultivates instability and chases an ungrounded experience. Systemic complexity and creative destruction are characteristic. Muirhead uses paint, objects, photography, installation, and video to break apart and reconfigure form and space. Terror often looms. Entropy gives way to emergence.

Art Beyond The Object? Art Beyond Grad School? (A Kickstarter Fundraiser): Help Me Complete My Mfa And Kickstart My Life As An Artist., Hsini D. Leary

Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this paper and Kickstarter project is to enable the production of my last semester’s work and thesis exhibition, and also to aid in the post-graduation transition to a sustainable art practice that does not rely on the current gallery structure.

Let's Keep In Touch : Conversations About Access And Tactility., Whitney E. B. Mashburn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Let’s Keep in Touch: Conversations about Tactility, a project collaboratively organized by social practice artist Carmen Papalia and curator Whitney Mashburn, presents conversations between Papalia and artists selected by Mashburn, in regard to tactile access of the chosen artists’ works. The project aims to challenge visual biases in museum engagement, through dialogue with living artists.

Carmen Papalia takes social practice in a new direction as he applies it to the topic of accessibility. Using the tool of conversation, he creates strategic infrastructural activism and prompts exploration of non-visual perception.

In this thesis, Papalia’s work will be examined and discussed …

Heavy Light: Transformation Of Matter In Relation To Growth And Decay, Lauren A. Bennett

Masters Theses

Through my artwork I explore the cyclical relationship and inherent inevitability between the processes of growth and decay. I engage notions of place, memory, fluctuation, and ephemerality. Drawing inspiration from an abandoned house and its many atrophying, accumulated contents, I examine the human impact upon our ecological surroundings and personal domains, tied to notions of finality and sustainability. Using light and time as both narrative elements and the physical components to cultivate images, I create hybrid prints that weave a story of our ever-changing territories. I present visual works that challenge our idealized views of life, and call attention to …

Primate Aesthetics, Chelsea L. Sams

Masters Theses

A cultural, historical, and scientific survey of the phenomena of primate pictorial behavior, presented in a series of interconnected vignettes. What do primates find visually appealing? What is their motivation when creating images? What are the implications for art and for science? By drawing explicit and implicit connections between science, art, case studies, research, and personal narrative, I attempt to weave together what we know, and what we may never be able to know about this complex field.

Unstable Systems Or Why Is My Junk So Raw?, David Musgrave

Masters Theses

Unstable Systems or Why Is My Junk So Raw? is an exploration in the raw aesthetics of exposed electronics; showing the complicated systems that make our everyday electronics work using the visual language of formalism to display these “broken” consumer electronics as art. The work in my thesis show explores the creative potential of death and impermanence through the failing of technology. The work in the exhibition combines my interest and childhood fascination in electronics as well as my experience with my father’s illness. Accidentally and intentionally broken TV’s and electronics are producing live glitches which emphasize the instability of …

Summoning The Body That Acts, Brendan M. Mccauley

Masters Theses

Seven series of artworks; painted, drawn and performed. These works are presented as affective incorporation exercises, that test modes of aesthetic communication in response to varying political contingencies. The constitutive processes used to develop the work also function as a methodology for my own political radicalization. As an artist I am wagering how to talk, as an activist I am preparing to act. The artworks discussed occur at the crossroads of these desires as enactions of futurity within the subjunctive mood.

An Aesthetic Theory Of Gamesmanship, Derek A. Fordjour

Theses and Dissertations

An Aesthetic Theory of Gamesmanship is an in-depth analysis of the personal, sociological, and historical elements contained within the art of Derek Fordjour with considerations given to artistic and literary influences that inform his intention and goals in the work. Also included are illustrations of specific art works and descriptions.

Vs, Bolin Jue

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

VS is a poetic exercise in rhyme and rhythm. An exercise attempting to camouflage ideas in humor, in song, in lyrical overtures, and in social media pop culture lingo to highlight the damaging effects technology and social media have on the human relationship with the earth. VS is a mirror, is an attempt to selfie the world we have lost touch with by contemplating where our role as caretakers for our planet lies. Through varying poetic forms, VS displays and critiques the limited perspective forced upon us when we socialize and experience life solely through phones and screens.

In this …

Digital Photography As Experience Artifact, Ryan V. Brennan

Theses and Dissertations

Through the screen interface, the boundary between personal and collective experience is being redefined both spatially and temporally. Here, memories are given independent mediated existence, taking form in digital photographic artifacts that can be communally shared and manipulated into a synthetic continuum.

On Negotiating Between The Virtual And Material In Art Historical Reproduction, Zorawar S. Sidhu

Theses and Dissertations

A discussion of the role of art historical reproduction in the works of Nicholas Poussin and the theories of Johann Joachim Winckelmann, in relation to artworks by Zorawar Sidhu.

Interspace Encounters: Parkview Gardens, Madeline Marak

Graduate School of Art Theses

The undertaking to render an experience tangible reveals the inadequacy of the techniques and technologies of representation to transcribe the perception of ubiquitous, yet unnoticed, spaces in the urban environment. The work of Madeline Marak contemplates overlooked and forgotten spaces that are unnoticed by busy, preoccupied minds. The work advocates for slowing down… considering… and being present. This thesis refers to writer Rebecca Solnit and her anthologies on the subjects of walking, wandering, and getting lost to advocate for activities that preoccupy the mind and facilitate freethinking. The humanist geographer Yi-Fu Tuan is quoted in argument for a direct engagement …

Of Ghosts And Garage Sales: The Painted Realizations Of Reflective Nostalgia, Rachel Ahava Rosenfeld

Graduate School of Art Theses

Painted from the lost snapshot photograph collections of strangers, the Testimonial paintings represent both the mythical potential of earlier times and the maddening reality that no matter what details are revealed, they can only ever be ghosts of the glories and tragedies that preceded our own. In the search for their stories, for their truths, for their absent memories, everything and everyone that we could have known lies dormant. The ghosts, the legion of “selves” arise from the questions asked of the paintings, and through the invented answers that activate the fractured past. In order to do this, I analyze …

A Performative Script: Play With(In) Me, Erik Patton

Theses and Dissertations

Patton continues his interest in the body, its relation to material, the notion of abstraction (specifically related to queerness), and the phenomenological with this performative script. Enter the bath first; you must wash your dirty asshole, as you shat only two hours ago. Collect your body in the Silver Pond.

A Crocodile Passed By Today, I Said Hello, He Said Hello, That Annoyed Me, Mayra A. Villegas

CGU MFA Theses

The creatures in my paintings are vastly invested in catering to my sensibilities. Emotional cowardice, impulsive politeness: through them, I am relieved of those personal culprits. They lend ropes, take blame, spit in eyes, and color my streams of consciousness. Furthermore, they manifest personal and social arrays of vexing scenarios. Suffocating hierarchies, the monotony of existence, my paintings aim to offer respite from such malaise.

Ultimately, my paintings are resolving, absolving even, personal and societal grievances.

Lili Zhong Artist Statement, Lili Zhong

CGU MFA Theses

Appreciating beauty, the universe’s natural essence, is an innate and indispensable human ability that helps us learn about the world. Everyone has their own definition, even on the degree to which beauty represents something abstract or realistic. It could mean elegance or romance, be from an audio or visual source, pertain to religious wisdom or even human value. Regardless, art always address beauty.

It's Always Better With A Good Dm, David Colannino

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

It’s Always Better With A Good DM is about our relationship with objects and maps as a vector for fantasy. Beginning from the premise that humans understand the world via narrative, I am concerned with the loss of imagination in adulthood in lieu of ideology, which is no more real than stories of future and fantastic places.

Meta-Forms, Rickey P. Bump

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The artist discusses his Master of Fine Arts exhibition, Meta-forms, held at the Tipton Gallery in downtown Johnson City. Exhibition dates are from March 14 through March 25, 2016. The artworks on display are a series of drawings made from carving wood panels and sheet metal and are accompanied with a large scaled site-specific installation. The exhibition culminates from research of historic and contemporary figures for non-objective art. The author gives insight to the artistic process while creating his exhibition, as well as their personal connection with the artwork.

Bridging The Gap: Making Modern Dance Accessible To The General Public Through Elements Of Art And Entertainment, Samantha S. Russell

Honors Theses

My senior choreographic project, DoRaMiFaSoDoSiDo, was inspired by and dedicated to the relationships I share with my six siblings. It was set to the song "Attaboy" off of the collaborative album The Goat Rodeo Sessions by Chris Thile, Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, and Edgar Meyer. Influenced by the bright and fun atmosphere of barn dances, this seven-person concert dance was performed in the Repertory Dance Company Fall Dance Concert at the Mannoni Performing Arts Center in Hattiesburg, MS in the fall of 2015. This paper investigates different choreographic methods that I discovered through the process of creating my senior project …

Kindred, Katelyn Osborne

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Kindred, an MFA exhibition held at the Tipton Gallery located in downtown Johnson City from Feburary 22^nd to March 4^th. Kindred presents two bodies of work, which are a collection of drawings, etchings, monoprints, and lithographs, that center around a personal mythology and symbolism of self-identity and discovery. These works explore the physical and spiritual connection behind being a fraternal twin through the metaphorical use of animal imagery.

The ideas discussed in this paper center around the process of creating a personal mythology and symbolism through my observations of animals and how I relate that experience to …

Lara Salmon, Thesis Statement, Lara Salmon

CGU MFA Theses

My art brings together materials and ideas inspired by personal experience that do not usually exist side by side. My body is the primary mechanism with which I make work, incidentally making me the subject matter of the work. I use my physical self as an instrument to coalesce and transform other materiality. Through live performance and photographic installations I create tension and balance between crude biology and bright, polished formalism. This body of work focuses on Millennial Feminism and the Middle East.

Nothing Behind The Sun, Sebastian Fierro Castro

Theses and Dissertations

painting as a containment exercise, and as such, a tool that allows us to interiorize the world

Practice, Morgan T. Babic

Theses and Dissertations

Past training as an athlete has driven me to reach for the unattainable goal of flawlessness. This mentality, which I apply to jewelry making, has led me to recreate the intricate angles of the athletic body and the beauty of its movements. I use gymnastics imagery within my work as a tool to communicate how we learn and understand through practice and repetition. With shifted lines, skewed shapes and geometric wirework, the jewelry tumbles over the architecture of the wearer’s body. The repetitive metal forms come together to simulate movement and enhance the physical language that a body in motion …

So Much Apparent Nothing, Emily Mcbride

Theses and Dissertations

This document contains reflections on motivations behind selected works leading up to and including my thesis exhibition so much apparent nothing. Through journal excerpts and analysis of my own psychology, I attempt to put into words my thoughts concurrent to my making, indirect as they may be. The following text shares my personal conflicts and ideologies surrounding art-making, the permanence of objects, and the acceptance of an identity in flux.

Build-Up, Kate Lund

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Build-up is based in an appreciation for quietude within the landscape that is interrupted by a sense of urgency and distress. The renderings, gestural drawings, and sculptural work are the result of allowing my studio process to mimic my analytical decision making and sensory observation as a wildland firefighter. The research investigates my work in relation to Romantic painters such as JMW Turner and Sublime philosophy, particularly Edmund Burke’s 1757 Sublime theory. Burke emphasized the emotional and psychological response to the Sublime experience of terror and awe. My research also discovers connections with contemporary artists, Robert Smithson, John Peña, and …

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 …

Company: Finding The Eternal In The Mundane, Antonia Janis Barolini-Lawrence

Senior Projects Spring 2016

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College