Art Practice Commons^™

Making The Invisible Visible: Mapping Chronic Pain Through Art, Caroline Young

Scripps Senior Theses

This Studio Art thesis explores how I use my art practice as a chronic pain healing process. It draws on the fundamentals of the neuroscience behind pain and the implications of this science for people with chronic pain. People with chronic pain often turn to alternative healing techniques in their search for relief; my own alternative healing approach comes from my art practice of “pain mapping."

The artistic healing process that I have developed takes inspiration from chronically ill artists such as Frida Kahlo and Anna Cowley Ford. The artistic mapping of my pain that I have developed primarily uses …

Representing The Ali'i And Monarchy: Dress, Diplomacy, And Featherwork In Hawai'i, Tess Anderson

Scripps Senior Theses

When Native Hawaiians and haole (foreigners) first met, both participants belonged to fashion systems unknown to the other, composed of different materials, styles, tastes, standards, and construction techniques. As the outside world was introduced to the cultural heritage of Hawaiian hulu manu (featherwork), kūkaulani (chiefly fashion), and European skewed conceptions of Hawaiian indigeneity; the ali‘i (chiefs) and kama‘āina (commoners) received and adapted to incoming materials, technologies, and information. When these encounters transitioned into “prolonged contact” and settlement, dress and adornment proliferated in new ways. Analyzing the case studies of historic pā‘ū, holokū, ‘ahu'ula, and military uniforms shows the significance of …

The Heirloom As Evidence: Investigating The Colonial Trace Preserved Within My Family’S Sandalwood Box, Olivia Meehan

Pitzer Senior Theses

This paper accompanies my senior art exhibition Picturing the Colonial Trace. Pulling from a wide range of interdisciplinary scholars, I theorize the practice of critical white auto-ethnography through visual interrogations of family heirlooms. The heirloom as evidence holds within its form a colonial trace. I investigate this trace through my creative practice, revealing the environmental, economic, and interpersonal histories of the British colonization of the Indian subcontinent. My art disrupts my family’s narrative of a benevolent British Empire and redirects attention to the silences of my family archive. This thesis proposes a potential model for white scholars of Environmental …

Concentrated Exploration: Reconstructing The Professional Life Of Lucille Paris, Noor Tamari

Pomona Senior Theses

This thesis uses archival sources to track the artistic trajectory and professional life of American abstract expressionist artist Lucille Paris.

Transfor, Yumeng He

CGU MFA Theses

The dialogue is not idealistic or theoretical. It's a step-by-step modification. I think of it as a sequence or series of "small episodes." These "small episodes" are of great help to the self-growth of the work. They reveal that my idea at the beginning is different from the finished piece. And, most important, the process can neither be predicted nor copied. This makes the work unique and authentic.

Family Tree, Yumeng Zhang

CGU MFA Theses

For the past two years I have been making works that attempt to describe the world from a subjective perspective as much as possible, striving to move beyond what I see around me to what I know. I create through my body, my memory and my subconscious, which is the truest expression of my inner self.

Itafdaloo, Janan Abdelmuti

CGU MFA Theses

My works are autobiographical. In them I explore the unconscious and conscious aspects of my life as a heterosexual cis female. My works function as a form of journaling. The repetition of lines, stitches, and patterns stand in for the repetition of different tasks. I try to submerge the onlooker into my emotional experiences through the use of pop culture references and familiar materials and objects. The inadequacy of life and lack of fulfillment has led to the creation of chromatic spaces. Pieces are void and then filled with silent moments. The quiet restlessness of inner turmoils combined with the …

Chaos Coordinate System, Shuai Xu

CGU MFA Theses

我目前的作品聚焦于看不见的世界，我的很多灵感都来自于我的梦想。我对人类与宇宙的关系感兴趣，尤其是当它在地球上发生时，个人与自然之间的关系。我希望在向外扩展的同时更深入地探索我的内部世界，以参与社会和超越。

My current works focus on the invisible world, and much of my inspiration comes from my dreams. I am interested in humanity's relationship to the cosmos, particularly as it plays out here on Earth, in the relationship between individuals and nature. I hope to explore my interior world more deeply while expanding outward, to engage society and beyond.

Dreamwalk, Julie Loffer

CGU MFA Theses

The day I learned that dreams can be real had a profound effect on my life. As I began

to form my art practice, I naturally began to contemplate how we determine what is science

fiction and what is real. People seem to divide themselves by who they are or what they

believe. There are times when science fiction has become real. For example, the idea that

giants or Bigfoot could be real sounds silly to most people. Even though artifacts of unusually

large remains are a part of the fossil record, such creatures are considered science fiction.

Science asks …

Arabesque, Zafirah Ahmed

CGU MFA Theses

This paper talks about my MFA Thesis Exhibition : Arabesque. It discusses my usage of pattern and how I am exploring pattern in its historical context, against the repetition of societal patterns in various spaces. Through the use of created symbols in paintings, and installation work.

Unlocking The Energy Within; A Journey Through Healing And Evolution, Juliana Favela

CMC Senior Theses

Through a series of acrylic paintings and watercolors, I set out to document emotions, feelings, and experiences that I’ve had through my personal process of healing. By engaging in meditations for each piece, I was able to decide on a set of motifs, symbols, colors, and messages that I wanted to portray. This paper discusses in more detail how I went about this process and what the significance of each piece is, in addition to my inspiration, my identity and its impacts on the work, as well as what I learned from this process. I argue that as we unravel …

Unlocking The Energy Within; A Journey Through Healing And Evolution, Juliana Favela

Scripps Senior Theses

Through a series of acrylic paintings and watercolors, I set out to document emotions, feelings, and experiences that I’ve had through my personal process of healing. By engaging in meditations for each piece, I was able to decide on a set of motifs, symbols, colors, and messages that I wanted to portray. This paper discusses in more detail how I went about this process and what the significance of each piece is, in addition to my inspiration, my identity and its impacts on the work, as well as what I learned from this process. I argue that as we unravel …

Lost & Found Memories: An Examination And Critique Of My Past Through Art, Alice Chi

Scripps Senior Theses

Ever since I was young I depended on triggers to retrieve my deeper memories. It is because of this quality that I think I have developed a tendency to collect and assign sentimental value to various items that I associate with certain people and moments. Over the course of my life, I have kept many objects, trinkets, and documents because of this. To catalog these memories and confront my lost relationships, I have collected these found sentimental items around my home and compiled them into a documented history of the lingering relationships throughout my life. The resulting product is a …

Intimate, Jason Brewer

CGU MFA Theses

I’ve used the paint as a substitute for myself to engage viewers to identify their interpretations and similar experience with emotional and mental states. Using texture and movement with the strokes of paint that mimics gestures of, and colors associate with, the mental states in order to present a visual sensory of emotions and psychological states; like the gravity of being in a depressed state, the itchiness and blood red feelings of frustration, the emptiness of being alone, the encroaching pressure of stress, and the weightless haze of confusion. The paintings become an intimate bridge between individuals and a sense …

Tenacity, Order & Disorder, Lucy Manalo

CGU MFA Theses

My work is about empowerment. The idea of using metal comes from my past experience as a welder/machinist in the Air Force. Metal is a tough medium and I believe it conveys the themes of strength and tenacity through it’s materiality.

Rhythms Of Light, Jessica R. Csanky

CGU MFA Theses

My works are visual expressions of a true love for movement, rhythm, and saturated color. In making art, I present lived experiences that are rendered abstract. These formal representations originate from an energetic space or sensory association and express a connection to places I have been, whether physically or emotionally.

Integral to my practice is the uninhibited exploration of materials and tools. I am committed to deepening my understanding of what paint can do when combined with drawing and installation techniques.

My compositions address architecture, landscape, memory, as well as psychological and physical spaces that we move through during our …

Still Spring Was Spring, Qianqian Yang

CGU MFA Theses

The works came out of an exploration of looking, time and place. A strange tension always occurred to me every time I returned home. For a month, I resumed my early morning schedule in high school on a daily basis. The route between school and home constructs most of my memories in the city. The practice of repeating the old routine is my way of trying to understand my relationship with this place, to probe into the separation and intimacy that constantly contradict within me. What has kept you away and brought you back, why, I ask myself. Relying on …

Hail Mother, Sydney Walters

CGU MFA Theses

My work disrupts two kinds of power: gender roles in religious practices, and the perceived power of a ritual object. Constructions of gender and power are thrown onto a stage and cast in a sincere parody that ultimately liberates underrepresented people to perform with agency.

My larger-than-life figures examine who holds power in religious institutions. The figures challenge the intelligibility of their identity because she/they are dressed in religious regalia. In Western Catholicism, maleness is the pre-requisite for priesthood. These church leaders are distinguished by wielding specific religious regalia: i.e. the Ring of the Fisherman, Episcopal gloves, and globus crucigur. …

What If Anything Still Meant Something, Andrea Munive

CGU MFA Theses

My drawings are active reflections of my surroundings and their intrinsic relationship to the ideal and banal. My surroundings have encompassed my memories and present, revealing a sense of slow time and peripheral consciousness.

What If Anything Still Meant Something is about this duality of care and disregard- an eternal mental state it seems.

Capacity, Rachel Baydian

CGU MFA Theses

This Master of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition by Rachel Baydian is an installation of ceramic sculptures that function as a stand-in for the human body, touching on relationship, interconnectivity, and imperfection. Using abstracted forms that derive from the earth, these art objects are sculpted to mimic nature and its processes. The work highlights our human connection to nature as integrative and vital. Through experience and tactility, there is more of an awareness of space and heightened senses. The work taps into the awe and seduction of the mystery of nature through seemingly ordinary elements of the physical world.

Language, Memory, Place: Building On Disappearance, Alexi Butts

Scripps Senior Theses

Language, Memory, Place is an investigation into clay’s therapeutic and tactile qualities. When combined, these attributes make clay an effective tool for priming spoken communication, increasing connectivity and serving as a tangible means of accessing and physically grounding abstract memories of home.

Conducted in France throughout the summer of 2019, my research set out to engage French speakers in a reflective dialogue on what it means to transform empty spaces into ones filled with feeling and meaning of home. In addition to verbal conversation, I simultaneously directed individuals of different ages, origins and living in seven different cities through an …

Changing Perceptions Of The Carceral Space Through Photography: The Tehachapi Project By Jr, Alexi Butts

Scripps Senior Theses

“Can art change the world?”

In his global art practice, French artist JR transforms overlooked communities into valued canvases. With an approach rooted in collaboration, JR’s large-scale public photographic installations integrate the built environment into a visual experience of human life.

In October, 2019, JR and his team entered the maximum security prison in Tehachapi, California to embark on a new collaborative project: “Tehachapi.” This paper explores the impact of “Tehachapi” as it extends beyond the physical photograph wheat-pasted on the floor of the prison’s courtyard to touch on issues of humanity, power and accessibility. Created as a collage of …

Indominable, Kathleen A. Fox

CGU MFA Theses

INDOMINABLE, Kathleen A Fox

The reformation of the feminine portrait from that of idealistic sexual beauty into a portrait of strength, community, longevity, transformation, and inane human foundational essence of societal value. This collection of portraits illustrates the uniqueness that is often overlooked for the fast, idealistic and instantly read images of women hailed as beautiful. These women contain a space they have earned with their strength of character, spirit, and unwillingness to be moved from their places of significance. Created with an expressive abstractive edge to traditional portraiture, these female portraits refuse to be easily glossed over, for their …

Hot, Water, Mud: Some Attachments, Dianne Dillingham

CGU MFA Theses

The works in my thesis show came out of an investigation into what it means to really know something. To have such intimate familiarity with a place or object that the shape, smell, and touch becomes unforgettable; the dirt under your nails, smell easily recalled, the carved outline of a bedpost after years of touch. These things are unremarkable in their everydayness; but they can also hold power over time. They can become attachments – motifs that resurface and repeat - that have agency.

Quiet Moments, Deitra Charles

CGU MFA Theses

I am a figurative artist who focuses on ordinary people and everyday objects. I paint moments. A moment of peace, a moment of tranquility, a moment of contemplation. It is my hope that my paintings will incite a feeling of warmth, presenting the possibility of thoughts that take you away from the stresses of day-to-day life – that they give you the opportunity to experience life differently, stirring within you some sense of peace.

It is my hope that my paintings will incite a feeling of warmth, presenting the possibility of thoughts that take you away from the stresses of …

The Standard Model, Manny Llanura

CGU MFA Theses

Photography is my medium. “The Standard Model” is a body of work created from photographs of the Los Angeles Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2019 Collection runway.

Each final work starts with over a thousand photos that become the raw materials from which I eventually produce my final piece. Deep in the final piece are the lights, shadows, hues, tones of a themed shoot.

I believe that the ability to focus on what is in front of you is not directly proportional to how detailed the image is. My goal is to incite appreciation of what humans have done or …

Muted, Cindy Ruiz

CGU MFA Theses

Dolls inspire me because of the mysterious place they occupy in human affection, conveying playfulness but at the same time expressing the vulnerability of being alive. They don’t need a verbal language, for they have a strong gaze that looks back. I see them as a substitute for humans. As subjects for paintings, they are a cross between a figure and a still life. They don’t move when I paint them. I paint these dolls as realistically and as honestly as I can because I want to be true to the individual doll. I paint what I observe.

Unseen Forces, Rebecca Rich

CGU MFA Theses

My work belongs to a discussion of awareness and presentness. The foundation of the unconscious is the primary influence. The questions I am asking concern selfexamination and self-reflection. I am working from a place that relates to the other and identities that would intersect with something and someone else: interobjectivity. My art-making practice demands accountability with something greater than the personal. My work demonstrates that there is a shared space we intersect with. It sits between the end and the beginning, intuitively understanding that change is a constant with or without one's involvement or influence. My work is about connections …

The Threshold, Jonathan Yacoub

CGU MFA Theses

The Threshold is a place that forms a nuanced duality on what is authentic and artificial.

Carbon 碳, Mengyuan Li

CGU MFA Theses

Death is the one certainty in life. This fascinates me and I cannot stop thinking about it. When it comes to life and death, the cemetery is a more realistic place than heaven and hell, and it is also a place to feel life and death more directly. A simple gravestone separates life from death. Cemeteries let people come face to face with life, death, and even love.

In a cemetery, there is a tranquility that is different from the city or nature. In a cemetery, people take off their masks and face their emotions. I believe that when we …