Arts and Humanities Commons^™

So Long, Sinkhole City!, Heather Molecke

LSU Master's Theses

Abstract

A sinkhole is land that appears structurally sound, but underneath its surface lacks foundation. If there is not enough support for the land above, a sudden collapse of the surface happens. Sinkhole City is a conceptual three-part installation that metaphorically conveys experiences of childhood sexual abuse, incarceration in adolescent psychiatric hospitals, and young adult drug addiction. This work illuminates and explores the relationship between childhood trauma and drug addiction.

Sinkhole City takes the viewer on a journey through semi-autobiographical life passages. In this three-part installation assemblage I am confronting my own sense of past shame, the emotional roller coaster …

Phantasmatic: Interrogating The (Im)Materiality Of Bodies Through Wool And Clay, Alexandria J. Arceneaux

LSU Master's Theses

Phantasmaticis an exploration of materials and materiality which relies on the concept of the phantasmatic body elucidated in Gayle Salamon’s work Assuming a Body: Transgender and Rhetorics of Materiality. This thesis is an exploration of these ideas. In my work, I use wool and clay to represent the material (known) and phantasmatic (sensed) bodies in an effort to explore an expanded understanding of the body at large. My work is also an effort to expand my own understanding of my phantasmatic body and its relationship to (my) materiality.

Bridging Dimensions: A Robotic Art Project, Samantha Miller

Honors Theses

Spanning the divide between the humanities and STEM has been a pursuit of my undergraduate experience. In my senior project I seek to relate these disciplines through the creation of “automated canvases.” Resulting is a series of robotic art pieces that automate the opening and closing motion of Turkish map folds. These map folds then present a series of paintings displaying a tone of the uncanny and references to parallel universes. Utilizing robotics in my project allows the paintings to push further into a third dimension than normally possible. Providing literal motion to my traditionally two dimensional work requires consideration …

Among : A Series Of Enactments, Joel F. Kern

Masters Theses

AMONG captures the practice of a constructionist designer, one who oscillates between the characteristics of typography, multi-materiality, and spatiality yet does not attach solely to the physical or digital. The fundamental principles of this practice include open platforms that foster generative collaboration through modular systems. AMONG straddles the borders of graphic design, environmental design and social sculpture. At its core, this practice encourages new ways of connecting communities.

Multiple Bodies As One, Valerie Skakun

Theses and Dissertations

Influenced by traumatic bodily injuries, physical therapy, muscle growth, breathing patterns, mental health, ways of supporting a disabled body, navigating the health care system, and exhaustion, the work described in this paper is a double meaning of the word "organ" and investigates the body as machine. The vital parts of a pump organ, the bellows and pipes, are extracted and re-configured into structures built for the performer's entire body to physically engage with in order to produce wind-driven sounds. Two of the sound sculptures require that two performers engage in play together, allowing them to audibly communicate through moving their …

Darwin Or Frankenstein?, Sylvia S. Santamaria

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Through sculpture and drawing, I create my own versions of natural specimens primarily based upon the visual unity of disparate organisms. Invented specimens are composed using a variety of processes employing a mixture of atypical materials following the (20^th, 21^st century) Postmodern shift away from formalist and traditional uses of any singular medium. As well as a variety of art materials, the specimens are hybrids of organic and biomorphic elements, blurring boundaries between botanical, animal, fungal, metal, and mineral. Is my approach perhaps like Charles Darwin, observant and studious naturalist, or am I more like Dr. Frankenstein, …

Collective Subjectivity And Utopian Desire, Stewart A. Stout

Theses and Dissertations

This project explores the conceptualization of the body as a collective. Displacing the individual subject position as the primary avenue through which we might see ourselves, the collective is offered as an alternative capable of opening up new avenues for a desire that is utopian, queer and communist.

Reflected Dispositions, Taylor Hedum

MFA Thesis Exhibit Catalogs

My MFA Thesis Exhibition, Reflected Dispositions, features an installation of sculptural objects and light projections in an unconventionally dark gallery setting. Spotlights shine onto the reflective sculptures, and the light is cast onto the surrounding environment. Motors or water deform the sculptures to create dynamic motion in the projections, with the cyclical changes and tempo meant to evoke a state of reflection in the audience. The percepts magnify the nuances of the material; to reveal the previously unseen.

My interest to control light stems from experiments with materials and the unexpected reflections that they produce. Since then, I have learned …

Kiddush Levana, The Moon Is Your Handheld Mirror, Noa Ginzburg

Theses and Dissertations

Noa Ginzburg is weaving cast-off and hand-made objects, lights, reflections, spells, drawings, and an abundance of knots into site-responsive installations. In her thesis, Ginzburg addresses Hieronymus Bosch’s paintings, the synergy of assemblages, repurposing of materials in the era of Anthropocene, and how notions of solidarity and indeterminacy influence her work.

Zitrone, Chase Roy Young

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis paper is to describe the elements and narrative associated with the exhibition, Zitrone, as well as the conceptual and theoretical ideas influencing the work. The exhibition is centered around an invented singular historical object in the form of a vehicle, and a museum display of artifacts, documents, and recreations intended to validate the existence of the central subject. Drawing on the work of artists Marcel Broodthaers, Damien Hirst, and David Wilson in conjunction with theoretical writings of Dave Hickey and Lewis Hyde, the exhibition seeks to address the perception and presentation of history as absolute …

Seeing Through Feeling, Christopher Mitchell Rodgers

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this paper is to describe both the inherent formal qualities and conceptual framework that are addressed within the exhibition, Seeing Through Feeling. The exhibition is centered around the methodology of making, collection, and display all through the one singular positioning, the object. The objects within the exhibition are either handmade or collected fragments that weave together around the singular position of craft and history under the pretense of how our understanding of time may not always be true. The thesis breaks down key components through specific themes into the categories of the hand, eye, symbol, object, value, …

Living Stone, Jason P. Millward

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

My sculptural work has a direct relationship to the rich tradition which utilizes human form as its primary means of communication and visual exploration. This tradition employs body language and gesture to convey emotion and ideas. Even my abstract work begins as an idea from a figurative gesture. Rather than executing a naturalistic body, I simplify and stylize the figures, focusing on the concept and aesthetics of the piece.

To do so, I emphasize certain formal elements in the design: concave and convex planes juxtapose to intensify light and shadow.Shapes are made by a continuity of line to create a …

Still Searching, Ari O. Norris

Student Projects

(Show Statement) A nondescript image of a sailboat and a pair of clouds, titled "A Scene from Moby Dick," hangs in the living room of The Simpson's family above the couch. Without knowing the title, the cartoon composition could also be mistaken as an illustration of Bas Jan Ader's final performance & photograph, "In Search of the Miraculous;' the artist's 1975 attempt to cross the Atlantic Ocean on a Guppy Model 13. Poised to break the record for the smallest vessel to complete the transAtlantic haul, Ader's boat, the Ocean Wave, was found adrift 10 months following the departure. His …

Sculpting In Marble And Fresco: Michelangelo's Julius Ii Tomb As Template For The Sistine Chapel Ceiling, Jillian Gates

Senior Theses and Projects

As a seminal artistic figure of the early Renaissance period, Michelangelo produced works of art that defined the canon of art. Through his early sculpted and painted works, the ambitions Michelangelo had for himself as an artist were evident. Not only were the works he created masterful for such a young age, but they also pushed the boundaries of existing artistic and stylistic techniques. Michelangelo used his sensibility towards the creation of sculpture, specifically the Julius II Tomb, to create figures and architectural elements in the Sistine Chapel Ceiling that reflected his vision of marble. He applied his approach in …

Emotional Reverberations, Kirsten Heteji

Theses and Dissertations

Projecting psychological mindscapes onto domestic objects allows for an emotive and bodily connection to the domestic realm. Body, for me, is the clay and how it holds touch and softness indexically recording the actions of making in the final forms. Pushing, pulling and pinching clay evokes sensations that connect the maker’s body as well as the observer of the work to participate. I shift expectations by experimenting between the hard and softness of bodily material like clay, giving it emotional fragility in how it contrasts the original structure it imitates. I think about creating objects and the arrangement them of …

Everything We Touch Is Touching Us, Molly Markow

Theses and Dissertations

EVERYTHING WE TOUCH IS TOUCHING US

MOLLY MARKOW

22 Pages

Images shape both personal and collective experiences of place in the Anthropocene. I am interested in the relationship of landscape and representation to purity politics, longing, and escape. I am critical of the role of idealized depictions of “nature” and question how images shape our notions of paradise, desire, and fantasy. Who benefits from notions of paradise, and who doesn’t? I ask these questions while searching for a way to embrace impurity and the beauty in contamination. How might we come to an understanding of the post-pure that leaves room …

Behind Closet Doors: Horror And Dislocation In The Queer Closet, Corey C. Allen

Theses and Dissertations

“Behind Closet Doors: Horror and Dislocation in the Queer Closet,” is composed of a collection of sculptures, videos, and sound works that are directly associated with themes of horror and anxiety derived from the precarious space of the queer closet as detailed in this thesis of the same name.

Warped Gates, Christopher Roberson

Theses and Dissertations

I am interested in the ambient conditions that are filtered through our bodies and our relationships with the built structures positioning us. I am combining experimental material approaches with a sensitivity to the spaces around an artwork to create sculptural situations that are dissonant and precarious.

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.

North American Data, Joseph A. Burwell

Theses and Dissertations

North American Data fractures and reconfigures pre-existing narratives into new, unauthorized forms of storytelling. Core samples extracted from various narrative sources are reassigned new roles according to their proximity to each other. This paper functions as an introduction to the essential actors and their dramatic inclinations within fluctuating scenarios.

At The Risk Of Enchantment, Amy M. Butowicz

Theses and Dissertations

Through a lexicon of painted soft sculptures, salvaged furniture and objects referencing the hand-made, my work explores the absurdity of life through a lens of theatricality. My cast of characters are humanized with both physicality and interiority. The works haptic sensibility creates an oscillation between tangible object and metaphysical presence.

Generative Movements, Cabbage Juice, & Habitats Of Selfhood, Jason Michael Rondinelli

Theses and Dissertations

The content of this essay is a reflection on my practice as an artist. A summary of text includes an analysis of my attraction to certain materials such as drywall, cabbage juice and coconut oil, all materials are the extensions of my memory, intention and pleasure. From warm memories of bathhouses and the flesh of others to managing illness at home, my artwork distills a lived experience into material reality. These materials take the shape of sculptural networks that serve as biographical biomes. The architectural and organic components of the work are sourced from my own experience and the surreal …

How Is Global Postmodernism Globalized? Lee Seung-Taek’S Conceptual Art As The Methodology Of Survival For The Unrepresentable, Mi Hyun Oh

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis takes a comprehensive look at the integrated social context of South Korean artist Lee Seung-taek’s (b.1932) biography. I look at the ways in which Lee’s life experiences and practices capture the essential and critical influence of postwar South Korea’s strong anticommunist stance and his precarious status as a North Korean refugee in South Korea on the formation and development of his conceptual sculpture and performance work.

Pass Away, Jessica Li

Theses and Dissertations

This project is about a familial history and takes the form of a sculptural installation. How do you pack to go to a place you know nothing about? Bags enable mobility by providing a sense of home in unfamiliar terrain. What is carried on a trip to the grocery store? To California? To the other side of the world? To the moon? Into the afterlife? What choices are made out of necessity versus what is carried out of desire or fear?

Dress Up, Ye'ela B. Wilschanski

Theses and Dissertations

Dress Up (Performance, 40 minutes) is a dress that functions as a floor, blanket, tablecloth, book and walls. It tells a visual story about domestic care giving rituals, referencing different times and places.

The Realness Or, Liquid Smoke Or, This Is What The F••K Boutta Happen, Octavia M. Burgel

Honors Papers

This research uses personal and theoretical frameworks to unpack paradoxical notions of Blackness in both it’s political and chromatic understandings as related to my studio practice. Jared Sexton posits the color Black as simultaneously all-consuming and incomprehensible; a necessarily contradictory state. I utilize this concept in addition to material histories that span from Pompeii to modern day New York City and art historical references as foundational explanations of my work. Written in both formal and intimate voices, this text is an extension of my studio practice, situated at the nexus of the realization and subversion of binary states of existence.

A Thesis Is Not A Diary And Other Myths, Erin Irene Wolf

Honors Papers

How do you write about a feeling you do not understand? How do you organize what is purposefully messy? How can you name a ghost of something that you push into the world with your hands? In this thesis, I will explain my practice, form, and material as a way to illuminate my art, along with various readings and philosophies that I use to guide the work.

For Your Consumption: Curating And Exhibition, Sasha Guo

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

A reflection on the experience of curating a BFA solo show and the artwork developed through my upper level classes at Eastern.

Connecting Thread, Christen Parker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Up until about the 1960’s, sculpture was dominated by work made with metal, wood, or stone. These materials would be described as “hard” or “masculine,” while materials such as fabric or yarn are described as “soft” or “feminine.” Fabric is known for its softness and malleability and is commonly used to cover the human body for objects such as clothing or bedding. The materials that I have selected are generally considered soft, yet protective, but are also thought of as insubstantial and fragile. As a child, I would see quilts and hear stories about how my maternal grandmother and great-grandmother …

Generic Of, Nicole Levaque

Theses and Dissertations

generic of is a creative text paralleling the creation of my thesis exhibition. I use fragmented layers of narrative, description and prose in the same way each handbuilt ceramic is fired multiple times, allowing the glazes to build upon themselves. This is a close study of the still life, the intimacy of consuming, and how trauma is passed through the gut.