Arts and Humanities Commons^™

As I Wander, Michelle Lum

CGU MFA Theses

My work highlights moments of wonder from my everyday life to give a more holistic view of reality. To me, experiences of wonder are spaces where a person feels God’s presence, where the spiritual reality of our world becomes visible. Sacraments in the Christian tradition are visible signs of a divine reality. I think of my work as sacramental: heightening moments where the visible gives way to the invisible—not by denying their physical characteristics but through them. The heart of my work is in the intersection between that which is deeply ordinary and that which is deeply extraordinary.

Repeat After Me, Bonnie Morano

Theses and Dissertations

Bonnie Morano’s devotional abstract oil paintings are an offering of conviction reconciled with joy. Balancing spiritual zeal with geometric space, she creates mirrored compositions filled with gravitas and play. The sacred and domestic join together in maximal harmony, examining alternative arrangements of transcendental experience.

Flores, Rigoberto Flores

Masters Theses

My name is Rigoberto Flores and I was born in Guerrero, Mexico. The work I make involves politics, immigration, cartel violence and religious themes. I’m interested in presenting these challenging and difficult concepts, to have them remain in the public consciousness. The work I produce involve charcoal drawings, textiles, print, and painting. The work I create is intended to address inconstancies in established ideas, usually involving government violence. Throughout history art has been used to promote institutional propaganda. I am searching to do the same, but to oppose those structures.

My Kinship With The Trees, C. Daniela Shapiro

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

This paper explores facets of patriarchy affecting women and the natural world. The paper suggests a cultivation of allyship and relationality between women and nature due to a shared experience of objectification within patriarchy. The separation of women from nature through origin stories, science, religion, language, and advertisement will be discussed. Examples from the graphic memoir Running without Moving are employed to emphasize this philosophy, including first person accounts.

The Voice Of One Crying In The Wilderness, Megan Kenyon

MFA in Visual Art

I am a Midwestern, Christian, and feminist artist. I make work about the beautiful, broken, and absurd ways in which American evangelical culture influences lives, especially women’s lives. I’m dragging everything into the light by deconstructing and critiquing the world in which I live, move, and have my being. I do this by harnessing prophetic imagination and incarnational space to shine a light on how patriarchy infects evangelical Christian theology and practice. Using prophetic imagination through photographic self-portraiture and text (my own and found texts using the Bible), I seek to make plain the effects of white, Christian patriarchy on …

Necessary Myths, Jessica Ramsey

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

My thesis essay was inspired by my search for a belief system that could transform despair over what will be lost through climate change into valuing what we still have. In researching the earliest iterations of belief structures, I came across the Maros-Pangkep cave paintings. These paintings are the oldest known works of art, and by my interpretation the first evidence of religious life. They are a series of representational paintings which tell a story, and I was inspired to emulate this methodology in my own exploration of belief.

My essay investigates the relationship between images and religion. Through W.J.T …

Cultural Formation Of Place: Making Yourself At Home, Olivia Arratia

Art Theses and Dissertations

The environment you grow up in can become a pivotal part of your existence. The sights, smells, people, and places you experience every day can transform the way you see the world. Growing up in a Mexican-American household has brought its own set of experiences that have made me the artist I am today. I am one of many contemporary artists building on the foundations of their heritage and the Chicano movement. I am also a Mexican-American artist expanding the identity and extending the legacy in the 21st century. This paper will investigate how Mexican-American heritage has influenced my artistic …

The Shape Of Faith: Understanding God Through Pottery, Kenton Ke

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

The Bible uses the relationship between a potter and the clay as a metaphor to describe the relationship between God and humans. “Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.” (Isaiah 64:8, NIV). This paper will expand on this metaphor, and draw parallels between the development of personal relationships with God and the complicated processes of pottery making.

Glut And Guzzle, Ashley Kay Gardner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In Glut and Guzzle I explore my relationship with my partner, our sexualities and how to navigate these outside of the LDS faith of my childhood, and their struggles with gender, sexual expression and mental illness. This exploration landed on seductive and repulsive imagery of food and body. I use color, texture and size as a tool similar to visual tools of advertising to seduce my viewer. This is an exploration of how gender norms and the visual language of advertising that infiltrates daily lives and through media and religion can shape identity and gender roles. I utilize advanced 3D …

Invocation., Shae Taylor Goodlett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The research of this thesis is concerned with the investigation of various approaches to religious theory; specifically, the observable analysis of performed ritualistic procedures and their theoretical anticipated effects. Through the examination of the illusory characteristics of the interaction of color and light I am able to draw analogous correlations between art making and ritualistic action. By enacting optical illusion as metaphor for ritual presence, I compare rational and empirical methods of observation. This analysis examines the discrepancy of physical fact and physic effect in that illusion employs physically observable means to render an intangible (non-material) physic effect. Such observances …

The Fearsome Femme: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation Of Lorenzo Sabatini's Giuditta Con La Testa Di Oloferne, Brant J. Bellatti

Art and Art History Theses

Lorenzo Sabatini (c. 1530-1576), an Italian artist working in the Mannerist period of art, created a revolutionary bloody rendering of the biblical story of Judith decapitating Holofernes. The Bolognese artist, and his painting Giuditta con la testa di Oloferne (Judith with the head of Holofernes), has not been extensively written on by scholars, therefore, this study suggests an original interpretation of the artwork. Lorenzo Sabatini would likely have borne witness to a number of decapitations in Bologna, because they were typically executed in public urban courtyards. Maturing in this sort of environment can impact an artist’s life. Through Lorenzo Sabatini’s …

Constraint And Control, Patricia Ayres

Theses and Dissertations

I have long considered themes of the body. Drawing on my knowledge as a fashion designer, I bring materials and hardware from the fashion industry into my artwork transforming and rendering them non-functional. My sculptures relate to stories of isolation, separation, and confinement. The following pages will analyze how the United States penal system controls, constrains and restricts the body through physical and psychological wounds. Furthermore, they will examine how the Catholic Church controls people’s minds and behavior through a ritualistic belief system.

The Parallels Between Art Therapy And Christianity: Integrating Identities As A Christian And An Art Therapist, Kendal Hansen

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Therapists knowledge of their personal beliefs is extremely beneficial to individual’s working in the field of art therapy. Therapists are better able to serve their clients when they have a clear understanding of themselves and their biases. The writer of this thesis identifies strongly as an art therapist and as a Christian. To better understand how the two strongest parts of her identity integrated, this thesis explored the parallels between Christianity and art therapy by reviewing the literature and facilitating an arts-based qualitative study. The literature suggested that art therapy can be effective with various populations within the Christian category. …

Intercultural And Interreligious Bonds In The Language Of Colors, Lucy Soucek

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the interfaith elements of the artwork of three south Asian visual artists, The Singh Twins, Siona Benjamin, and Arpana Caur. All coming from various religious backgrounds, living in multicultural societies, and navigating the borders and boundaries between different religious thought, these artists create meaningful artwork which explores what it means to live in a pluralistic society. All three artists invite viewers to think differently, formulate opinions, rethink assumptions, and spark associations. They use art as a way to ignite interfaith understanding, reaching broader audiences and asking us to question how we understand our neighbors and ourselves.

Goddesses Of Color: Interfaith Altars, Aimee H. Miller

Scripps Senior Theses

This paper explores the intertwined history of certain goddesses of the Middle East and the Americas. This history informs the original invented contemporary deities that my project centers around. Using recycled materials and collected objects, my project displays two religious altars, one from my heritage and one from my experience living in Brazil. One altar is based on afro-Brazilian sea goddesses, and one is a contemporary imagined interpretation of a Judeo-Christian female figure. The two altars together compose an installation that seeks to unify a pagan practice and two distinct monotheistic traditions while still honoring their separate parts. These parts …

The Death Of Modesty: How The Decline In The Church’S Influence Along With Social And Cultural Factors In The Twentieth Century Directed Changing Views Of Modesty In America, Tracy-Ann M. Griffiths

Honors College Theses

As the topic of modesty and its origin is explored the creation of modesty can be traced back to religion and religious teachings and texts. Since the early twentieth century America’s modesty standards and ideals have slowly changed. With the increase in the influence of celebrities in the 1930s and 1940s along with the decrease in the influence of the church starting with the religious reformation, the death of modesty in American society has resulted. The purpose of this paper is to show a relationship between the origin of modesty and religion as well as show that America’s acceptance of …

Rituals, Our Past, Present & Future. Glimpses Of Islamic Enrichment, Othman Mohamed Khunji Mr

Theses and Dissertations

A Muslim should be encouraged to comprehend the benefit

and value behind every aspect of Islamic practice and wisdom,

and not just practice their religion because they were told to do

so. The products proposed in this thesis aim to achieve this by

inviting and encouraging a Muslim to practice The Five Pillars

of Islam while comprehending their value through the use of

modern means such as Arduino technology, 3D printing and

visual computing programing.

I am provoked by the fact that the circle of Gulf-region Muslims

I’m surrounded by, and have been exposed to since childhood,

belong to one …

Living Between Two Worlds: Conflict, Investigation And The Change, Noura Abdulhameed Shuqair

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Beginning with my exploration of art as an aesthetic object, this paper shows the growth of my work and concept. Through my practice, I have been able to understand the contradictions in my traditional society and western modernity. It has helped me grapple with my own beliefs, and begin to confront those I don't agree with.

The Immaculate Condemnation, Corey Robertson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My work is a continuously evolving self portrait formulated by a combination of past experiences and influences. The Immaculate Condemnation body of work is a cathartic reaction that confronts Catholic Sin and rebels against gender conformity. As both a confirmed Catholic and transgender woman, I speak from an authentic voice that seeks open conversation regarding these topics. I also hope to demystify the transsexual body for the non-transgendered viewer. Additionally, I use allegoric imagery to communicate my interpretation of beauty, power, horror, and sex. I combine performance, photography, sculpture, video, audio, and graphic design to execute my installations. I intentionally …

In The Name Of God, Sharon Mccusker

Art and Design Theses

This exhibition is a direct response to my own religious upbringing. I chose to explore the oppression upon women, gays and people of color by religious intolerance. The Church dictates social and political mores that affect our society and culture and the way we are treated and governed. The use of the bible and conservative belief structures to defend the ill manner in which we are treated should not be ordained in today’s social construct. In the Name of god addresses issues from the Inquisition to the current war for control over women’s bodies and our reproductive systems. By revisiting …

Chinese Cultural Center, Wei Dong

Theses and Dissertations

During this period of high technology, designers are eager to create environments that have strong emotional appeal to people's physiology and psychology. Our exploration of the natural living space has become all the more an elusive search as modern technology advances. Interior design, in its concern for environmental engineering, endeavors to exploit the spiritual aspect of human resources. Through this message, people are inspired to higher planes of existence.A. PROJECT To design a Chinese Cultural center. B. PURPOSE 1. To introduce the traditional and contemporary Chinese culture to western people. 2. To illustrate and describe the philosophies of Chinese life …

Kitsch In The Visual Arts And Advertisement Of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints, Lori Schlinker

Theses and Dissertations

The writer's reason for making this study is a felt lack of taste and a general misunderstanding and misuse of the visual arts in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. She is convinced that art, generally considered as a matter of personal taste, is actually a matter of professional judgement. A characteristic of our time is the "do-it-yourself" trend and to make up ones own mind about everything without any consultation of authorities and also a loss of feeling for integrity in productions of the human mind and hand which broke down the fences against kitsch and opened …