Art and Design Commons^™

Go: The Race Against Resignation, Townsend Baird

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

How do we go about deriving meaning in the information age, when culture has replaced society, decentering religion? My art practice seeks to answer this with storytelling, specifically in how archetypes can connect mythology, history, and personal narrative to build a functional personal mythology. Through painting fantastical portraits collapsing the compositions of Christian iconography with contemporary motifs, the installations tell strange and humorous narratives. My thesis piece focuses on the marathon, in the context of the original myth of Pheidippides, the common misconceptions about this myth, the infamous 1904 St. Louis Olympic marathon, the 1978 Boston Marathon, and my experience …

Transmutation, Sam Berger

MFA in Visual Art

My artistic practice is about change itself. I am inspired by the doubling and layering effects that came out of Surrealist Photography. Scale, fracture, and doubling are intentional components of my process. I combine those methods to create complex works of art, focusing on the untamable light that I hope to capture when making my images, which often are self portraits. Poetry is an integral element of this thesis text as well as my art making process. Through my poetic work I hope to offer my audience a glimpse into how I see and experience the world. This thesis text …

Undefinitive, Lan Mu

MFA in Visual Art

My thesis project, Undefinitive, examines the cyclical process of destruction, transformation, and rebirth through installation, ceramics, and text. With a deep unease toward my own gendered body, I investigate how vulnerability, both physical and psychological, can become a site of resistance and empowerment. Drawing from feminist theory, Chinese mythology, and stream-of-consciousness narratives, my work explores the monstrous and the fragmented as inseparable states of one’s becoming. Through references to body art, speculative fiction, and queer theory, I reimagine femininity and queerness as forces capable of dismantaling societal structure and forging new modes of existence.

Set in a post-apocalyptic world where …

Digital And Physical Spaces: All At Once, Addyson Hoey

MFA in Visual Art

In this thesis, I explore our experience of digital and physical spaces in the ever-increasing presence of technology. By investigating the intersections of these spaces, I focus on how our experiences in the physical world are processed through the digital space, to re-merge in lived spaces. Through digital collage paintings, I explore how assisted chance and machine destruction can be productive in the formation of space that is not possible on the screen. By using the drop shadow as primary content, my work takes on the arrangements of surface and space—rather than the requirements of the physical world. In addition, …

Places, Please!, Catie Cook

MFA in Visual Art

Growing up in the American South as the daughter of a scenic designer, I frequently found myself on both the physical stage of the theatre and the metaphorical stage of gender performance. Through immersive oil paintings, I seek to visually represent where these two experiences merge, depicting imagery and characters from my childhood staged in theatrical and uncanny environments. In this thesis I explore the canine motif as my primary subject, positioning the Dalmatian as a self-insert and exploring the show dog as a foil to the Southern beauty. Building upon Judith Butlers theory of gender performance, and Laura Mulvey’s …

How Kirby’S Return To Dream Land Deluxe Subverts Narrative Expectations, Kelley I. Hale

Aurora

The Kirby series has been around for over 30 years, and very little has been done to research it. This is a shame, as I believed (and still do believe) the series has a lot to offer in terms of research. For this paper, I analyzed Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe, a Switch remake of the Wii game Kirby's Return to Dream Land. I analyzed the cutscenes found within the game using fantasy theme criticism. I did this to explore how the game subverts narrative expectations, as well as show that Kirby games have value when it comes to …

Webdesign Jayasaintfrances.Com, Taylor Mcauliffe

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

From Relic To Wreath: Investigating Victorian Hair Art, Ella Kauffman

Senior Seminars and Capstones

Museum patrons often felt disgust and awe after I would tell them what the intricate wreaths in front of them were made of when I gave tours at the Crow Wing County Historical Society. Hair art was popular in the United States and Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with its peak occurring between the 1860s and 1900.1 Despite its popularity, it is not often discussed at length in fields that study Victorian artwork or bodily artwork. Many Victorian scholars were entirely put off by the medium because of the morbidity, and the practice is often dismissed as a …

Performative Biomechanics : Evolving Buildings Into Inhabitable Organisms, Josh Lopez

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

There has always been a connection between biology and architecture. Michael Pawlyn, in Biomimicry in Architecture, coined “biomechanical designs” to describe structural techniques derived from creatures. This study investigates chitin-based creatures. Crustaceans, insects, and microscopic organisms all have exoskeletons in nature. With a focus on crabs, other crustaceans and bugs, this study examines and evaluates the formal characteristics of chitin-based organisms. The architectural creations of OXMAN, NOX, which was founded by Lars Spuybroek; and Lebbeus Woods are among those that are analyzed and studied due to their inspiration from living things. They follow functional effectiveness in nature, which is why …

Encountering The Imaginary: Félix Régamey In Japan And The Legacy Of Japonisme, Nicolas Moiseyev

Art and Art History Honors Projects

This thesis critically examines Félix Régamey’s transformative role in the development of Japonisme, highlighting his pivotal contribution to bridging Western perceptions and authentic Japanese culture during the late nineteenth century. Through an exploration of his firsthand experiences in Japan, Régamey emerges as a multifaceted and paradoxical figure—an artist, educator, and author—whose pursuits reshaped the narrative of Japanese art and cultural exchange in France amid the fervor of Japonisme. His immersion in Japanese society enabled him to engage directly with its artistic traditions, which he skillfully translated for European audiences. This study reveals Régamey’s efforts to challenge the prevailing Orientalist stereotypes …

The Estuary, Maureen Alsop

Studio One

No abstract provided.

The Emerging, Samantha Schug

Studio One

No abstract provided.

Ghost Of Crusaders, Edward M. Supranowicz

Studio One

No abstract provided.

Studio One Volume 49, Studio1 Literary Club

Studio One

No abstract provided.

Veils Of The Unseen, Shinwoo Song

Art Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the dynamic interplay between consciousness and unconsciousness and how this relationship influences visual language in my art practice. My research investigates how unconscious impulses and conscious choices intersect in the creative process, shaping artistic expression and viewer interpretation. I examine how visual art can serve as a medium through which hidden emotional and psychological states, such as memory, desire, and internal conflict, emerge and take form. Rooted in the practice of automatism and influenced by Surrealist strategies, my work engages with theories by Jacques Lacan, particularly his notion of the gaze, and Gilles Deleuze’s concepts of extraction …

Collage As A Facilitator Of Connection And Belonging: An Application Of Art Therapy With Sgm Clients, Noa L. Shems

Expressive Therapies Theses

This research explored themes of connection and belonging in SGM clients in individual art therapy sessions through the medium of collage. An arts-based research method was developed utilizing the medium of collage in session with clients, followed with reflective response collages and journaling to analyze the data observed. Across 5 art therapy sessions, clients engaging in collage facilitated deeper therapeutic rapport and safety, enhanced a sense of connection with the self, and helped to process barriers and desires around clients’ close relationships.

Multifunctionality, Aahanaa Tibrewal

Art and Art History Honors Projects

Multifunctionality is a project that explores the intersection of art and design through a versatile dining table that transforms into a gaming table. Built with accessibility in mind and using red oak for its warmth and grain, the table features a rolling tambour top that serves as a dining surface when closed and reveals a felt-covered gaming area when open. This piece was shaped by my needs and the desire to create a space for connection and shared experiences. This project reflects my broader approach to art – constantly exploring new materials and methods, driven by curiosity and a love …

Medical Illustrations Of Human Facial Muscles And Heart Anatomy, Molly G. Ecroyd

Honors Projects

Wrote a research paper on the history, careers, and future of medical illustration. I created twelve drawings total, six of the musculature of the human face and six of an enlarged human heart. I worked hands-on with a real human heart in the cadaver lab and used a human face model for reference in my drawings. The human face drawings were drawn from the anterior and lateral views. The human heart drawings were drawn from the anterior and cross-sectional views.

Garden Of Fragments, Justin Muegge

Theses and Dissertations

Justin Muegge's paintings take the aesthetic experience of garden spaces as a vehicle to explore abstraction. Referencing his research in traditional Chinese Scholar's Gardens, Muegge explores the conceptual premises of their design philosophies, raises questions on the history of abstraction and his own work, and expands upon themes in his painting.

All Ego Must Die, Meredith Bakke

Theses and Dissertations

Using plasticity as a central framework, this thesis explores painting as a site for radical transformation of the self. Through symbolic engagement with sadism, ego death, and material play, it investigates how fantasy, fear, and imagination coalesce into a generative force—one that dismantles rigidity and opens space for discovery.