Arts and Humanities Commons^™

On Memory And The Radical Black Imagination, Todd Thomas

Theses and Dissertations

On Memory and the Radical Black Imagination is an exploration of the personal, sociological, and historical elements contained within the art of T. Eliott Mansa (Todd Eliott Thomas) Mansa examines the memorialization of black death and the radical black imagination. included are illustrations of specific art works and descriptions.

Double Splinters, Theresa M. Daddezio

Theses and Dissertations

Awareness of matters outside oneself can be heightened by a repetitive task, one that requires a meditative focus on the rudimentary of movement. The construction of a line is a projection from a fixed point that creates a multiplicity of lines, synapses, and connective fabric in the mind that project outward to any possible or arbitrary point. When assembling our reality, our eyes operate as the mediators of such points, drawing in visual clues to the world around us. Sight is composed from the movement of light particles alongside of individual and collective memories that construct what is.

A Caprine Carnival: Goats At The Vālaikkāl Vāyil, Madhini Nirmal

Theses and Dissertations

Madhini Nirmal uses Mikhail Bakhtin's concept of the carnival to imagine a goat-led subversion of political and social dogma in the context of the South Indian city of Chennai. She uses the mediums of monotype, painting and collage to create these artworks where the undoing of hierarchies is a result of the natural and bodily.

Construction Narratives, Pablo M. Diaz

Theses and Dissertations

The whiteness of this work proposes a state of preparation for the painting to begin. However, it is the lighting of the room that completes it, adding a wider range of tones. The white wall of the gallery is also incorporated into the work by the opening slit. Additionally, the slit becomes a contrapposto pose, showing the space between bent knees as found in paintings of Saint Sebastian.

Painting, Geography, And The Body: Charting The First Two Decades Of Mary Corse’S Art, Sarah A. Meller

Theses and Dissertations

Mary Corse has always maintained her position on the periphery, and her work has generally been excluded from art historical scholarship. This study illuminates the ways in which the first two decades of Corse’s practice were in fact in dynamic dialogue with broader impulses and concurrent trends operating at the time.

Melting Crayons, Ho Lam Tang

Theses and Dissertations

Melting Crayons was inspired by a conversation with a clarinetist and a good friend, Jena Nahnsen, last summer in Italy. As we were waiting for our friend to finish her shopping for souvenirs next to Ponte Vecchio, Jena and I had a conversation about combining visual colors and music.

A few months go by, and Melting Crayons is created. A collection of melodies is generated using the six-digit crayon color code based on the fundamental E-flat. Using Mango Tango #e77200 as an example, the color code is a combination of letters and numbers. Letters reference for pitch, with my choice …

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.

With Monsters, Leonard J. Reibstein

Theses and Dissertations

These are the things I have learned about how I deal with pain. This paper includes a genealogy of immanent painting from the Renaissance to the 21st century. Through the lens of my biography I explore my relationship to toxic masculinity through expressionist distortion.

Quotations Like The Sharpest Claws, Johanna Robinson

Theses and Dissertations

Quotations like the Sharpest Claws describes a multimedia installation composed of paintings and sound that explores the theory of cognitive dissonance, a controversial psychological model that attempts to explain how we deal with inconsistency in incompatible beliefs. Imagination is given primacy as a source for truth-seeking and world-building. The uncanny and surreal are used as entry points into this topic.

The title is derived from a description of Eileen Myles’ poetry I once read in an anonymous review. Their writing was described as beyond poetry in a way that it could only be described as such when surrounded by “quotations …

Drawings With River, Greg Piwonka

Theses and Dissertations

These paintings are a record of my recent past, a past with a new son, major life shifts, big decisions and risks. These paintings are a record of my distant past, of my relationship with my father and siblings. These paintings are a record of my present, my relationship to art, current, past, good and bad. These paintings are both joyful and cathartic, simple and confusing. They are about my life, and my attempt to not repeat the mistakes of the past, but to try create joys for the future.

After The Big Wind Stops I See Gentle Waves, Eunji (Jubee) Lee

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis covers my reflections on the inspirations and the motivations behind selected works including my candidacy exhibition; Resonance and my thesis exhibition; after the big wind stops I see gentle waves. It contains my life throughout my MFA studies and the development of my art practice. Through its story-within-a-story method of narration and my describing streams of my thoughts, I am attempting to explain the processes of my development and the discoveries I have made, the little things in my daily life, and the big turning points that inspired me. My work and this document have been strongly determined …

Tides, Isa N. Gagarin

Theses and Dissertations

My artistic practice creates relationships between the abstract and the personal. I define the abstract in the context of my studio work as a material exploration of color and form. The personal encompasses autobiography in relation to my sense of time and place. In this text, I use my concept of oceanic tides (considered as a temporal and spatial shift between states) to chart my activities as an artist. These activities include making objects that change in character over time, and durational work including performance and video. Interwoven throughout Tides are narrative passages based on my personal experiences, including witnessing …

There Is Someone In This Dress, George, Michael S. Royce

Theses and Dissertations

Questions surrounding queer subjectivity—including shame, the closet, and celebration—are at the core of my interests as a painter and image maker. Mining the history of religious iconography, including annunciation paintings, scenes of the crucifixion, and other notable works of this ilk, my paintings seek to explore the intricacies of sexuality and the workings of shame and celebration at play in the life of the queer-identified.