Art and Design Commons^™

Material Memory, Merry Sun

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

Memory may be implicitly embedded into an artwork through explicit material triggers. Materials can evoke memory through material past life and through physical denotations of the past. The former carries with it the weight of existence; the latter demonstrates tangibly what cannot be captured by words. The material triggers act as semantic memories that can be used to construct an experiential, episodic memory in the mental faculties of the viewer. The memory that is contained within the work must be implicit in nature to carry experience, for explicit memory can only be read semantically. As the viewer strives to reach …

Black Stereotype, Rashonda Daniels, Blaize'b Daniels

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

In my work, I create my own narrative regarding the stereotyping of Black people. The body of work that is discussed focuses in on the history of the Black stereotypes that dates as far back as the slavery era. Through my art practice, I address how the contemporary mistreatment of Black people stems from the historical foundation of negative Black stereotypes that were imposed upon us by Europeans. My hope is that by confrontingour history we can eliminate so called “Black behavior” or bad behavior and accept it as simply normal human behavior.

A Vestige Of The Ultimate Force Of Time And Space, Jiyoung Megan Lee

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

This art statement is rooted in an idea that the existential quality is independent of absence and presence (synonymous to appearing and disappearing, and real and recognition) and distilled physicality of human body creates a parallel relationship between the two. In search of a proof and logic for articulating the central idea, –that the absence does not define evanescence of existence— the application of physical interactivity in my art, also known as relational aesthetic, enables the work to invite viewers in a way that the interactors leave their traces by physically interacting with the work. These individual traces are eventually …

Dialogical Practice, Meenakshi Jha

Graduate School of Art Theses

Within an interdisciplinary and dialogical practice where process is as significant as final form/s, I delve in matters not to resolve but to explore them. Digging deep in my studio practice over my philosophical yearnings to talking loud and clear about my life in performances, I venture out in the geographical expanse to connect with self and others. In fact, the more I practice my craft, I feel a lesser and lesser gap between my ‘self’ and others. The walk outwards brings me closer to my internal realizations as a human being. In short, my practice is based on the …

The Psychos, Paula N. Stevenson

Graduate School of Art Theses

My current body of work is a series of drawings that juxtapose characters of fiction and reality in an attempt to explore the relationship between horror film and contemporary social issues. I strive to render an accurate portrayal of the face to draw the viewer into questioning the troubling narrative these characters illuminate. I focus on retelling stories of fear and horror, and crime and infamy. I want my work to convey ethical dilemmas as they are present within the relationship between horror movie antagonists and the audience (all of us). It is these concerns I attempt to visualize in, …

Her Anticipation, Cora Rozencohn

Graduate School of Art Theses

My thesis paper will explore my artistic practice by analyzing my thesis video project,Her Anticipation. I will accomplish this by examining three main topics: The essential elements of the video, the video’s relationship to my earlier work, and a discussion of the video and its structure with representative examples.

The first essential element of the video springs from my relationship with my husband, especially the aspect of the relationship that is tied up with our nearly forty-year age difference. The second element is my personal experience filtered through a deep reading of Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene. The third element …

Grids Within Grids, Lingrong Wang

Graduate School of Art Theses

Combined with my art practice, this thesis acts as a lens for the universe within the little grids I create. Instead of using brushes and pigments, I’m searching for a different way to represent strokes to form abstract images. I’m interested in using a folding method to make one page of printed paper into multiple layers. It is fascinating to transform single sheets of paper from magazines. The magazines that I have collected show people’s personal interests. These everyday items give hints and first impressions of meaning to the viewer, but I fold the magazines to make them unreadable in …

Universe Of Things: A Human Presentation Of Food-For-Thought., Madeline Halpern

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

I present this statement under three loose categories: People, Objects and their Environment. I consider People as human, Objects as art objects, domestic objects, and food, and Environment as the shared space of the former groups. Food directs this statement as I present each concept and creative process as a metaphorical dish. Material exploration carried me from a direct practice of reorienting acrylic paint and questioning object functionality through personified sculptures into theoretical thesis work in which I use interpersonal relations and the idea of consumption to translate tactile, gustatory and olfactory sensations into digital film. In this meal I …

Skin, Bones + Bags: Investigating The Death Of Marine Ecosystems, Rylie Walter

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

Plastic has become ubiquitous in the oceans. Although a convenient and cheap way to distribute goods around the world, plastic is also a leading cause for the death of many marine ecosystems. Walter explores her personal connection to the ocean, researches the relationship between plastic pollution and the ocean, and examines art as a means for inciting social change to protect and restore ocean environments. By using plastic as her main material for making art, Walter transforms the material from one that harms into one that can be calming and peaceful, while still representing the destruction it causes.

Feeling Blue, Katherine Ewald

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

“Feeling Blue” discusses the intersection between art and science as it relates to my thesis body of work entitled Bed/Room. I delve into the sensory world of art, diving into how our environment can have an effect on our neurological and emotional state of being. This is explored through different pathways, namely the color blue, seasonal affective disorder, and the senses. The artwork reflects these ideas, providing a multi sensory environment with the goal of promoting tranquility. Through my process of creating the piece, my intentions shifted to removing Bed/Room from the fine arts context and transferring it into the …

Concrete Poetry, Sara Ghazi Asadollahi

Graduate School of Art Theses

This text addresses my work as an artist and defines it in the context of the following subjects: The concept of ruins, which highlights the relationship between architecture and landscape; the formal and metaphorical dialectic between absence and presence in abandoned places; and the idea of dystopia, which emerges from that in-between space where the real dissolves into the imaginary. At the same time, my work is inspired by the visual culture of cinema and literature, principally within the science-fiction genre, and draws upon my observation of abandoned buildings in Tehran, my native city. These urban ruins are products of …

For Cheryl: The Long And The Short Of It, Rachel Lebo

Graduate School of Art Theses

Short stories are an indirect way of creating a truth by showing instead of telling. They are a way to observe and communicate a single idea. A short story for me is a vehicle for hiding my truth behind a character, exploring myself in the safety of an identity that is not my own. When I read Chunky in Heat, author A.M. Homes and I hide together behind her character, Cheryl, and find solidarity.

The following writings, paintings, and sculptures are collaborations between myself and the women of short story fiction. Those women being the authors, the subjects, and …

Clash Of The Titans, Kevin Mccoy

Graduate School of Art Theses

My artistic practice utilizes a hybrid of media such as serigraphs, lithographs, hand-made publications, installations, archival documents and video-based works to address master narratives and to challenge historical records. I closely examine the relationship between archived information and redacted histories and their effects on the collective and historical consciousness. I am interested in creating counter-archives to challenge the authority behind archival systems and interrogate their mutability. I also borrow from the same visual language of traditional archival systems to reveal institutional and historical skeletons. Due to my personal research, I have morphed into an archivist myself collecting bodies of hidden …

Through The Looking Glass: Marie Antoinette, The Mafia And The Buddha, Craig G. Foisy

Theses and Dissertations

Through the Looking Glass: Marie Antoinette, the Mafia & the Buddhais a short documentary film that recounts six chapters from the autobiography of Marie Antoinette. No, not that last Queen of France who got her head chopped off. This Marie Antoinette lives in Woodstock, NY (“but I do like cake!” says Marie from inside her shop). And yes, Marie Antoinette is her real name. She is 78 years old and she sells what she calls “wearable art” out of a ramshackle and overstuffed boutique in town. Marie is facing the possible closure of her shop: her 100-year-old …

Aer-075, Yasmin Soliman

Hospitality Design Graduate Student Capstones

Anticipating the potential future changes of airport design and expansion along with city planning for the purpose of bringing the two entities in closer alignment with one another is the main purpose of this book.

By conducting a timeline analysis of five different US cities and their airports, conclusions were drawn from tracking the relationship between the growth patterns of both. This allowed for a discovery of methods to increase connectivity with one another. These conclusions were followed by an overview of the jet industry and its possible future impacts on the way airports are designed, considering future adaptations of …

[In]Hospitable, Pedro Borquez, Taylor Wolak

Hospitality Design Graduate Student Capstones

Through comparative analysis of existing development in this region, this project identifies archetypes of ranging scale and magnitude which will influence evidence-based adaptive reuse design strategies and prototypical responses. With such a vast infrastructure, many opportunities exist to subvert paradigm shifts of thinking in terms of desert living, resource management, and utility distribution.

Artscape, Emylanie Carnate, Ronald Cano

Hospitality Design Graduate Student Capstones

In this thesis, three design opportunities are presented. The first design iteration looks at the micro scale. Public infrastructure along the length of the strip serves as canvases for public art. By expressing art on posts, utility boxes, guardrails, and bollards, a consistent rhythm of public art along the strip links together the separated attractions and properties. To emphasize this connection, the second design iteration implements intermittent hooks. Here, the meso scale reinforces public art interventions on medium-scale sites, such as street medians. The third design iteration is in the macro scale, which involves artscape anchors at either end of …

Confronting The Uncomfortable, Kathryn Clapsaddle

Honors Projects

With this Honors Project, I wanted to explore some issues that might be uncomfortable through the design and creation of jewelry. The Confronting the Uncomfortable section of the project accomplished this goal. These pieces explored themes such as issues with society and the world today. I also wanted to complete a project that combines jewelry with technology to improve some aspects of the health field. The Jewelry Design in the Medical Field section of the honors project accomplished this goal. This part of the project focused on updating the medical alert bracelet design and technological integration to make these tools …

I Like To Watch: A Literal Rendering Of My Own Gaze, Jenna R. Gribbon

Theses and Dissertations

Much of the pleasure of encountering the human form in paint derives from the access granted by the artist to their subject. My work highlights my own role in looking, and aims to make the the viewer aware of the ways in which they are implicated when consuming figurative work.

The Dream Of Being Totally Open, Frederick Greis

Theses and Dissertations

This essay details four major themes in the paintings of Frederick Greis: spiritual experience, nature, pleasure, and humor. These themes are described within the context of the artist's main goal, which is to create an experience of profound unburdening.

Loop, Lap, Leap, Hannah Schutzengel

Theses and Dissertations

My paintings use slow, subtle gestures to create experiences of quiet emotion: casual warmth and comfort, playfulness, ease. My focus is the irregularity of a poured liquid; the slow release of an ironed crease; the push and pull of care against things drooping apart.

Say Luv: Reimagining The Black Female Body, Jer'lisa Devezin

Art Theses and Dissertations

From hottentot venus to Cardi B, the influence of the white representation and the treatment of the black female body has shaped a culture of oppression amongst Black women, having surpassed the white community and trickled into the black community. In hip hop culture, reality television, and social media, black women are portrayed as angry and are stereotyped as ghetto and ignorant. On the music scene woman are always sexualized under the male gaze, however now that we are in the twerk era Cardi B is giving a new perspective to the representation of women in hip hop. By using …

Empathy In Aging, Morgan Kranz, James Charles Arendt

Honors Theses

Empathy in Agingis a project exploring how to show compassion for the inevitable aging process. This form of care is physical and mental. The concept for this work comes from my time working as a nursing assistantin a nursing home. Through my experiences, this project explores what I took away through observation and interaction

The Invocation, Zeinab Saab

Student Projects

No abstract provided.

Breath: Capturing Energetic Forms In Pottery, Raymond Brown

Honors Theses

As a Bachelor of Fine Arts candidate with an emphasis in Ceramics, the culmination of my undergraduate education was a formal showing of my work at the Gallery 130 in Meek Hall at The University of Mississippi, Oxford Campus from April 1, 2019 to April 5, 2019. I chose to make pieces of functional, utilitarian pottery with the intent of providing the user with an entrance into a memorable and contemplative experience. Taking influence from historical slipware mark-making - especially German Pennsylvanian Tulipware, I work to craft pieces that are inviting, generous, and strong. Both my show and written thesis …

Its Skin Is My Skin, Bryan Page

Graduate School of Art Theses

This text examines the complexity of attempting to empathize with bodies that are vastly othered from my own. This broad yet nuanced subject crosses epistemological boundaries and complicates the dualities between both the mind and body, and between the corporeal and the virtual. My desire to better understand the conditions of another’s experience originates from a painful traumatic loss which caused me to feel isolated and incomplete. In response to this suffering, I long to emotionally connect with other beings and create artwork that attempts to bridge the qualia of individual experience.

I am interested in the capacity (or lack …

Wish You Were Here, Janie Stamm, Janie I. Stamm

Graduate School of Art Theses

The State of Florida is under threat from the effects of climate change. Rising sea levels are creeping up on to Florida’s coast, eroding the beaches and encroaching on heavily populated cities. Over my lifetime I will watch the water spill over the streets of my home town. I will watch the water flood the Everglades, pushing saltwater into freshwater habitats. I will watch the water begin to drown the state, taking Florida’s many little known histories along with it. This thesis serves as a document of Floridian life during the Anthropocene.

Within this thesis, I tell the story of …

Future-Relics: Monumentalizing Afro-Caribbean Identity, Greg Bailey

Graduate School of Art Theses

Abstract

The use of monuments as future-relics to validate and preserve the identity of Afro-Caribbean people within the Anglophone Caribbean is the premise for the conceptual and physical development of my studio practice. My dissertation is about this practice and how the art work that I make, function in the way they are intended. The work monumentalizes Black identity in an effort to mirror the significance and resilience of the Black self within the Caribbean; a space that was created by Europeans to enrich their respective Empires. I put forward the use of established canonical art practices as a methodology …

Re/Vision: An Artistic Exploration Of The Fallacy Of Memory, Emma Johansen-Hewitt

Honors Program Theses and Projects

What does life look like? If you had to condense your life into a series of words, what would they say? What about objects; what would they be? What do we keep with us, and why do we keep it? What do we document and catalog throughout our lives? What does memory look like? How are our memories connected to this documentation, and what happens when we leave a space in which so many of our memories lived? Re/Vision is a body of work created over the span 10 months that explores the idea of memory, and the fallacy of …

Bauhausian Rhapsody 4.0: Mein Erbe, (My Heritage And Legacy) Design Thinking And Creativity In The Spirit Of The Bauhaus, Jill Lengel

Honors Program Theses and Projects

This honors thesis is a continued exploration of my Adrian Tinsley Program Summer Grant titled “Bauhausian Rhapsody, Uncle Chester went to Cambridge: An Adventure with Walter Gropius and The Architects Collaborative”. The Bauhaus was a school in Germany created in 1919, which for the first-time combined art education with applied arts and new technology. Today’s maker movement, and makerspaces, follow through with that idea and encourage creative problem solving, design thinking, craftsmanship, and technology. My ATP summer research focused on my great-uncle Chester Nagel, an architect who studied under Walter Gropius at Harvard from 1939-1940, and later became a professor …