Art Practice Commons^™

Aging Under Erasure, Pamela H. Reynolds

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Aging is a multifaceted journey that is different for everyone. It is a fluid process; there is no one predictable moment or age when a particular experience takes place. For that reason, the series “Aging Under Erasure” encompasses a myriad of subjects to emphasize and illustrate the diversity and complexity of the process. My work visualizes the feelings, observations, and realities of aging in an attempt to create understanding, alter perceptions, and contemplate the universality of change. The works are inspired by personal experience, dialogical practice, and academic research. Using paper and/or traditional and unusual mosaic materials and techniques, the …

Sana Sana: Unlearning Generational Expectation Through Performance, Jalen R. Ash

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My work is an exploration of identity as a BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, Person of Color) body traversing through the generational histories of my family and the struggle of cultural loss to our assimilation of Whiteness. Through the multi-faceted medium of performance, my work uses physical and mental spaces of self and technology to understand how the body functions as a screen. Our bodies house projections of generational expectations that have trickled down from the past into the present. These projections shape our own unique identities along with the personal experiences we gather as we move through the various spaces of …

Inequality In Renaissance Art; A Study Into The Lack Of Female Representation, Kaitlyn Anderson

Honors College Theses

This paper explores how female biblical figures were under-represented during the Renaissance period. It explores possible reasonings, consequences, and then takes a physical exploration into the renaissance style through newly created artworks. It also explores in greater detail, two specific female biblical figures, their multifaceted stories, and their previous portrayals. Lastly homage is paid to the female artists throughout history who have been working to level the playing field in the art-world.

Perplexions: Perceptions, Plexi And Prose, Amy B. Nelson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

An understanding of our world is unique to each individual and their experiences. While experiences are often shared, we all process them according to our own schema. Through exploration into the multiple facets of plexiglass, my work examines trauma, loss and its lasting effect on a person's memory of the past, present and perception of the future. These experiences can cause an abrupt shift in personal schema and reshape one’s perception of the world. Through the combination of visual and linguistic stimuli, my trauma-informed work can be a catalyst for my viewers to discuss what they are experiencing and why. …

Drink Up: A Study Of The Food-Safe Quality Of Ceramics Glazes With The Addition Of Rutile, Morgan A. Baldinelli

Honors College Theses

Food-safe ceramic glazes can be altered with additives and become harmful to the user of the ceramic ware. Rutile is a frequently used material added to glazes to create variegation in glazes, but it is commonly known to cause defects in the glaze that can be unsafe for food. This experiment is conducted to determine if rutile can be added to food-safe glazes and still retain their food-safe status. A food-safe glaze is a shiny, thin coating that does not leach chemicals or has an excess of colorants; common food-safe glazes are white liners and clear glazes as they have …

Écorché Figures In Mannerism As Influenced By The Reemergence Of Systematic Human Dissection, Megan Tanner

Honors College Theses

During the sixteenth century, many individuals became fascinated by the human form, which led to an increase in artistic and scientific focus on these subjects. Artistic interest in the human body resulted in a close relationship between artists and anatomists during the time, and the societal acceptance to public demonstrations of dissections, including flaying, was often converged with Mannerist ideals. It is historically evident that écorché figures during Mannerism were based on these, as well as torture methods during the time. As these demonstrations became more common throughout the sixteenth century, they began to be monitored in order to ensure …

Ex-Tensions: Material Entanglement And Intensities, Zohreh Galdizadeh Garmeh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an exploration of the intrinsic capacity of matter and material formations and utilization of art as a mode of inquiry. Ex-tensions: Material Entanglement and Intensities investigates the animism and vibrancy of objects and the hidden interplay between materials and intensities that flow through and around within the spaces that confine us. In this body of work, all forms of material configurations are understood as animated and agential and as different representations of the same substance that are only formally diverse.

Plausible Expositions With Possible Expeditions, Nikolaus D. James

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Influenced by video games and cinema, in this body of work, Plausible Expositions with Possible Expeditions, I use objects to create scenarios that suggest a narrative. The scenes are then photographed and displayed through cathode-ray tube televisions and viewers use their own knowledge and ideas about the objects to create that narrative. Each of these objects has is own data set, and the most common have a universal data set—information surrounding the object that is widely recognized, much like how a crowbar is commonly associated with crime. Similar to playing a video game, an algorithm is used when viewing my …

Patterns Of Identity, Tameka S. Phillips

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

People interpret and categorize visual cues not only to create a concept of an identity. We assume who a person is, and what their personality is like, based on these visual cues that are in turn plagued with established norms and biases that can connect or divide. Cultural norms, such as gender, sexuality, race, or political standing can be further expressed visually through textile patterns, motifs, and color. Even so, the many cultural signifiers serve only as clues to a person’s identity that encompasses many different cultural aspects, despite common practice to relate to only one. Through my textile statues, …

The Impact Of Patronage On Contemporary Visual Arts, Emily Coats

Honors College Theses

Patronage is vital to the art world and the success and notoriety of its artists. From straightforward patronage during the Renaissance of the Medici Family, the independent artists of modernism, to contemporary crowdfunding, it is important to note the changes in the art world throughout history to truly understand how artists and patrons have grown and continue to evolve in our contemporary society. Considering how patronage has changed and adapted throughout history and understanding the influence it has, not only allows a deeper understanding of the art world but also the world’s culture.

The A.H. Kotz Unnatural History Exhibit, Marian R. Trainor

Honors College Theses

An exploration in two parts into the development of a narrative through manufactured evidence designed specifically to encourage the suspense of disbelief. The physical work exists within a faux anthropological museum exhibition focused around a human whose history and existence is entirely fabricated. The structural work is the layers of historical and practical research used to develop the suggestion of reality. The exhibit contains samples of the research, artifacts, and specimens collected by the deceased naturalist August Hermann Kotz, along with his falsified history. The second part consists of an overview of the research process and techniques needed to successfully …

Irrational Aggregates, Courtney N. Ryan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis paper examines the work included in my Master of Fine Arts thesis exhibition entitled Irrational Aggregates. The goal of this work is to facilitate a dialogue between our natural environment and the excessive consumer-based environments in which we live. Combining a variety of ceramic techniques including hand building, wheel throwing, and casting these sculptures appear to be grown from, and even taken over by nature itself.

Often drawing inspiration from my personal narrative, that of consistent upheaval, relocation, and adjustment to new places, my work can appear both grounded and in a state of motion. I believe …

Mindful Escapism, Kench Weathers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the art work included in Kench Weathers’ MFA thesis exhibition. This work explores major themes such as the sacred, contemplation, optical illusion and paradox. The installations involve multiple three-dimensional geometric shapes that are formed with steel tubing (welded together). These works have various inspiration; both contemporary secular and sacred and are influenced by sacred paradox, both visual and ideological. The mixture of the two-dimensional with the three-dimensional creates multistable perception within the viewer. The work introduces visual and perceptual distortions of depth and dimensionality. These forms are nonrepresentational but act as a catalyst for the viewer. I …

The Classical Versus The Grotesque Body In Edith Wharton's Fiction, Joshua T. Temples

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In her landmark works The House of Mirth (1905), The Custom of the Country (1913), and The Age of Innocence (1920), Edith Wharton responds to earlier depictions of the classical, pure Victorian and Edwardian woman. Wharton's "inconvenient" women overturn popular stereotypes. Subsequently, they are barred from their social groups, but they are independent, unlike the complicit and obedient women of the classical body, most of whom ascribe to the trope of the "Angel in the House." The grotesque seeks to undercut the unrealistic expectations enforced by the classical through its embodiment of progression and humanity, and Wharton is drawn to …

Resilience, Glenda Militano

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

My objective for creating this body of work is to explore the complexity and beauty of the human brain. What inspired these works is my research on cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Cognitive psychology involves the study of internal mental processes, while neuroscience deals with nerves and nervous tissue that relate to behavior and learning. Neuroscience is where psychology meets biology. The series of paintings in Resilience, were created with the intent to connect these two fields of study, while charting my exploration and discoveries found linked with science and psychology. The brain and its components are portrayed in …

Considering Perspectives, Cynthia Epps

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This body of work, Considering Perspectives, explores the ideas of perspective, not only in terms of spatial perspective in art, but also regarding how our vantage point and presumptions affect how we feel about certain subjects. The subjects of my work are spaces or objects often overlooked or considered mundane. When we approach a work of art, we typically do so with a multitude of presuppositions that influence our response. Often, we are not even aware of this. By splicing together multiple perspectives I use my work to create awareness that there may be more than one way not …

In Search Of Communication, Usman O. Oladeinde

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the work included in Usman Oladeinde’s MFA thesis exhibition. The goal of this thesis paper is to explore major themes such as communication, identity, change, centeredness, landscapes, and language. These paintings present Arabic letter forms transformed into illegible shapes which are painted on landscape backgrounds, often depicting an aesthetic of textual elements receding into space. All these works are inspired by the Qibla, which is represented in the abstract and painted using acrylic media. Occasionally image transfers are mounted on the painted surface.

Visual representations like mine are communicative without forcing the viewer to one specific idea. …

Southern Steam Prints: Large Scale, Relief Printmaking, Allison Mueller

Honors College Theses

Southern Steam Prints, a steamroller printmaking festival for Georgia Southern University I directed and organized. The project helped create community involvement in printmaking as an art form, gained notoriety for the Betty Foy Sanders Department of Art and especially the Print, Paper, and Book Arts Program. The project taught valuable skill mastery in relief print techniques, commercialism, and leadership for the kinds of event that artists plan, jury, and participate in, in the professional world. The Southern Steam Prints festival took place on April 23, 2016. Artworks created at the event were exhibited at the Center of Art and Theater …

The Anatomy Of Disgust And The Sublime In Metamodern Painting, Claudia L. Furlow

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The works in this series explore the application of Platonic binary oppositions of life/death and attraction/repulsion using Renaissance painting techniques that include the application of solvent and linseed oil glazes, as well as Galkyd Lite and MSA Gel, to assist in the realistic replication of the flesh of animals that meet death at the hand of humans, by attack of other animals, or through mishaps with motor vehicles. Informed by the work of Ambrosius Bosschaert the Younger, Jan Fyt, Rembrandt van Rijn, Théodore Géricault, Francis Bacon, Joel-Peter Witkin, Walton Ford, Jenny Saville, and Victoria Reynolds, this study documents the evolution …

Fragmented, Max Rebel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis, Fragmented, outlines Rebel’s explorations with materials and techniques that led to the creation of his current work that was presented in his MFA Exhibition. Fragmented focuses on elements of abandoned and ignored structures found in both urban and rural communities. Rebel is interested in the visual characteristics directly related to manufactured landscapes that have been reshaped by neglect, specifically, surfaces that appear old and weathered. The assemblages he makes in reference to these deserted sites do not comment on specific architectural locations. Instead, they are meant to emphasize common traits found at multiple sites. By working with …

Infrastructure, Scott S. Foxx

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The paintings in this series depict sensations and forms drawn from a collaged, painted surface, referencing examples of painting from the Early Renaissance and the pure Formalism of the mid 20^th century. Collage materials lend both conceptual and physical directions to the compositions, in that it is symbolic of the multi layered experience of modern people in a technological society. Imitating painting’s gestural, linear energy in an illusory manner, the paper and paint layers invert expected hierarchies of space. I am analyzing the condition of the painter, the ideas of painting as an activity and product, with myself at …

Earthbound: Celebrating The Natural World Enjoying Good Food And Company, Virginia Russell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Earthbound is a body of utilitarian work created as a tribute to regional plants and animals, to beloved family members, to revered masters of ceramic art, and to the enjoyment of good food and conversation.

Earthbound explores the role of flora and fauna found throughout Southeast Georgia. These handmade functional objects celebrate aspects of nature I encounter on a daily basis. Each place setting is crafted to enhance the pleasure of eating and drinking while fostering a connection to the natural world.

I have long held an interest in the human connection to nature, which was fostered by both my …

Creatress: A Woman's Hand, Susan Isherwood Gibbs

Legacy ETDs

Using stylized and abstracted sculptural interpretations of She—Great Mother, Mother Nature, Earth Goddess, Creatress, Gaia, female sexuality, and the feminine aspects of nature; a wide range of differing chemicals and temperatures for the development of various clay bodies; and a vivid color palette to reflect ideas, feelings, and moods, I present a story of woman as metaphor for Earth and nature, an immense organic, ecological, and conscious whole. Incorporating found objects (natural and manmade) and fibers (organic and synthetic) with my clay imagery, I offer an awareness of the roles ofwomen from around the world in the spiritual and psychological …

Natural Forces, Natural Forms, Robert Benjamin Randolph

Legacy ETDs

No abstract provided.

Portals: Past And Present, Cynthia L. Rodday

Legacy ETDs

No abstract provided.