Art Practice Commons^™

Craters Of The Moon, Mckinlay V. Daggatt

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Craters of the Moon

When I feel like my brain has run out of storage I stand under an open sky and I imagine the room between myself and the moon. Between us is 1.26 billion miles of empty space, and I put my thoughts there so they have somewhere to go. I let the places I’ve seen, the media I’ve consumed, and the people I’ve interacted with settle into the craters of the moon. This work shows you the world I’ve built there.

I’m inspired by the landscapes around me. The difference between the natural world and the man-made …

The Quads, Elmer D. Guevara

Theses and Dissertations

My work attempts to reconcile my familial history. By reconstructing narratives, I am advancing a new sense of our family archive. My goal is to grant the viewer with autobiographical snippets delivered through the piecing and meshing of multiple scenarios and events that derive from family album photos and reimagining spaces.

Que Dios Los Bendiga, Dahlia Celis

Senior Projects Spring 2022

My "Abuelita Mariquita" is a generous woman, the oldest of 15 siblings born to my bisabuelos. I have lived with her my entire life in la casita azul, our home humble with its mismatched furnishings. Since I can remember, I have witnessed her house several of her younger siblings from Mexico who desired temporary work in the states. No matter the outcome of their stay, she would welcome them back, her home warm and open to those who may or may not have reciprocated my abuelita's generosity. It is from my abuelita that I learned to care for my family. …

Of A Mustard Seed: The Portraits Of "Church-Going" Black Folks In The Rural South, Nakiyah T.M. Jordan

Honors Theses

I am a Black, queer, faith-driven artist from the rural parts of Southern Mississippi. Who I am greatly informs the work I make. I come from church fans and gas heaters, from winding backroads and yards full of “junk.” I come from flattened “get well soon” balloons as decor and piles of papers and things that will surely come in handy someday or another. This series of paintings is taken directly from snapshots of my family and church family over the years. Some are images from thirty years ago, and others are from just a few months ago. The work …

I Thank You And All The Buildings That Make Me Feel So Small, Henry Holt Hull

Senior Projects Spring 2021

I use drawing and 3D animation to access memories of intimacy and distinctive spaces of privacy. Prior to this year I primarily worked with drawing and video, but always keeping them separate. However with my most recent project, I Thank You, and All the Buildings that Make me Feel so Small, I decided to combine my practice of drawing and 3D animation. I used adobe photoshop to convert my drawings from physical objects into 3D objects in the digital sphere.

The video you first encounter upon walking into my studio 400 Chambers and the video projected onto the ground Ivans …

The Wild Beasts, Peter Cochrane

Theses and Dissertations

The Wild Beasts springs from my desire to thank my ever-expanding queer chosen family and mentors for their strength. Working through the often violent and othering aspects of the lens and photographic histories I create floral portraits responding to each person’s being and our relationship. Using the 19th century, 8x10 large format view camera—the same used by colonialists and ethnographers to “capture” the divinity of Nature—I erect each as a traditional still life studio setup at the threshold between the natural world and that constructed by humans. These environments speak both to the character of each friend and also to …

Thanks To You, I'M Alive, Antonio Scott Nichols

Senior Projects Spring 2019

Antonio Nichols

Artist Statement:

In this project I am using figurative painting to explore the meaning of relationships/emotion and my connection to the people I am painting. I question what this means and how each individual’s identity ties to mine and why it may or may not matter. “Thanks to You, I’m Alive,” the title of this project, encompasses the message I am sending not only to the individuals I painted but also to the viewer because there is a certain exclusivity in who I decided to paint.

I want the connection I have with these people to not only …

Polaroid Access, Becky Jane Rosen

Theses and Dissertations

In her thesis statement, Becky Jane Rosen discusses the relationships between photography, family, and the psyche through her recent paintings and artistic influences.

Summer Light, Sara Dolatabadi

Theses and Dissertations

"Summer Light" is a film about family dynamics. Using light as a defining factor, it looks at the relationship between the director’s parents and her daughter. It is the her response to a desire to record and safeguard intimate moments of an ordinary day before they disappear.

Light On, Baby. No Future, Shane Dollinger

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

This project is a realistic depiction of the circularity of experience. As Images of ourselves and our experiences become increasingly inescapable, the repetitive and nonlinear nature of those experiences is amplified. This issue is explored in looking at contemporary artists/filmmakers whose handling of inundation in representation and narrative distinctly embraces multiplicity. Queering structures of representation, the work holds a mirror to the way that we experience living, encountering images, narrative structures and memories.

Malus Pumila, Andrew N. Warner

Senior Projects Fall 2017

Land can be passed in time through generations, just as the presence of family and friends remain. Ive been raised on my family’s land, while watching my relatives with a distinct eye. I have had the privilege of living on old familial ground, coming from my great grandfather to my grandparents, and now handed down to my mother and her siblings. I grew up in Virginia on a farm situated in the countryside with fields, horses, and apples orchards. These places have evolved in time and I have grown with them; though the trees still grow, the land stays the …

Interface: Fringe Landscapes And Identity, Elizabeth T. Lewin

Theses and Dissertations

An MFA thesis that weaves together: virtual landscapes, escapism, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, utopia, family, and identity.

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 …

Subsurface, Elizabeth J. Huhtala

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Contemporary Family Portrait: The Hidden Uncomfortable Truth Of Family Dynamics, Ji Won Park

Undergraduate Theses—Unrestricted

This thesis examines the hidden aspect of family dynamic and questions the idealized convention of family portraits. Based on Erving Goffman’s theatrical theory of community, family as a relaxing intimate group in the backstage, the underlying tensions, conflicts, and power play are discussed. This thesis draws upon the familial issues and treatments of Leon J. Saul and Rhee Dong Shick to evaluate the family dynamic present in our domestic settings. As the lineage of family portraits from history changed reflecting the differing family values and uncomfortable truths, the idealized family portraits are re-evaluated and questioned to offer a truer description …

Familial Dialects, Amanda King

MFA in Photography and Integrated Media Theses

Using the framework of scientific investigation, ‘Familial Dialects’ explores the languages – systems of signs and codification of those signs - of individual members of my family, and the metaphors that arise from their interaction with pieces of the natural world. Each of the pieces combine an inherent form and an organizing action as a means of representing an individual’s form of expression. These familial dialects are created and translated using the methodologies of a naturalist - collection, dissection, observation, and classification. The pieces draw meaning from the connotative associations built from familial connections as well as from broader cultural …

Imagining The Unknown, Angelina Kidd

MFA in Photography and Integrated Media Theses

It is true that there is no scientific proof of life after life or of the human soul. However, I believe there is a soul and that it is energy manifested as light. Our lifetime is a mere pulse when measured against the evolution of earth. We are connected to the cosmos through the very calcium in our bones and the iron in our blood, which originated from stars that died billions of years ago. My belief is that the earthly body is separate from the soul and that our light energy returns to the cosmos. Energy will not cease …

Traces Of Existence, Jayna Brown Quinn

Theses and Dissertations

This project report accounts for my final MFA project, Traces of Existence. This body of work began as an exploration, partially borne of the love of genealogical research translated into visual art by exploring the things my ancestors touched, be it ephemera, the soil they lived on, or artifacts they left behind, and partly as a pathway through which I could learn to understand more about my own identity, all the while finding beauty in the mundane. Although the works are personal, it is my hope that the viewer will respond to them in his/her own way, and that …

The Role Of Art In The Expression Of Individual And Family Dynamics Related To "Anorexia Nervosa", John Joseph Collins

Theses

Art can be a powerful experience. In this project , the artwork of a client diagnosed as having "anorexia nervosa" is explored in terms of how her art expresses her personal conflicts and family dynamics. Due to the particular quality of the family system of which the anorexic is a part, it is extremely important to involve the family in the treatment plan. For this reason, the emphasis on the whole family , or more specifically, the way they relate with one another, is one prime focus in t he discussion of the client 's artwork in this study. Although …