Art and Design Commons^™

Hot Girls Don't Worry About Copyright: Trans/Formative Works And The Femmage Lifestyle, Czeslawa Wojtkowski

MFA in Visual Art

This thesis examines the ways in which collage is an ontologically transgender medium due to its freedom from traditional artistic formal and narrative structures. Considering that many trans experiences center around dichotomies, juxtaposition, and self-definition, collage is the best equipped to communicate these experiences in innovative ways. Through interrogations of feminized labor and the ways in which the art world upholds harmful gender binaries, as well as discussions of Femmage, maladjustment, and obsession, I argue that the fragmentary nature of photomontage, digital collage, and videomontage can externally express the multitude of feelings and identities contained within a body, to a …

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 …

Hauntological Warfare: Explorations In Propaganda, Influence Campaigns, And Online Affect, Roy Uptain

MFA in Visual Art

This thesis, Hauntological Warfare: Explorations in Propaganda, Influence Campaigns, and Online Aesthetics, investigates how ideological power continues to shape contemporary reality through both overt and spectral means. Drawing from concepts like hauntology, psychological operations (PsyOps), and disinformation aesthetics, I examine how propaganda does not simply vanish once its immediate goals are achieved, but instead lingers—reshaping memory, identity, and cultural narratives through what I call hauntological warfare.

My post-conceptual research-based art practice engages this terrain by creating site-specific installations, performances, and media works that make these invisible forces perceptible. Works such as Kill Zones (for Boeing) (2024), r/RoastMe (2024), …

Unmeasured, Detached, And Isolated: The Legitimation Of A Domesticated Identity, Eva M. Agüero

MFA in Visual Art

Unmeasured, detached and isolated explores the lingering effects of colonialism on identity, behavior, and cultural perception through the lens of my personal experience as a Venezuelan immigrant in the United States. I investigate how colonial legacies—especially those codified through manuals of etiquette like Manuel Antonio Carreño’s Manual de Urbanidad y Buenas Maneras—continue to shape self-perception and societal expectations. Through video, sculpture, miniatures, and installation, I reconstruct a visual language that resists simplification and reclaims complexity. Engaging with the symbolic weight of tropical imagery, domestic spaces, and hybrid aesthetics, my work challenges Eurocentric frameworks and examines the figure of the migrant …

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, …

Go Cry About It!, Grace C. Ryder

MFA in Visual Art

I have always been a crier. I have always felt deeply and intensely. Goodbyes, heartbreak, joy, and empathy—I’m grateful to feel it all, even when it hurts. My artwork often investigates vulnerable topics through making the personal public using self archival and diaristic elements. Inspired by my familial and romantic relationships, I explore my connections to other people and how I memorialize and honor them. My painted works often depict ephemeral objects, establishing their value through the use of oil paints while my sculptures are often exaggerated, oversize forms, emphasizing the passage of time.

From January 1st to December 31st …

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 …

Froggy People: Anthropomorphism And Slice-Of-Life In Autobiographical Comics, Maddie Baker

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

This essay explores how the following three comics categories overlap and interact with one another: slice-of-life, anthropomorphic, and autobiographical. I search for reasons why comic makers would choose to tell their own daily life stories using animal avatars rather than their own faces. While each of these three categories has been studied extensively individually, I hope to find additional insights by observing how comic makers employ the genres together as storytelling devices. Each category has unique narratological power which impacts the reader’s experience. For example, anthropomorphism affects how the author and reader internalize and relate to characters. Slice-of-life comics are …

Lines Of Thought: The Cartoon As A Phenomenological Object And A Philosophical Tool, Thomas Attwood

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

Cartooning’s greatest strength is its simplicity. This essay argues that the cartoon’s inherent modesty and accessibility are central to its philosophical utility, and that its spare visual language conveys more than meets the eye. Drawing on phenomenology, it considers cartooning as a process grounded in the body, and it investigates the bodily encounter between the viewer and the cartoon. Through an analysis of cartooning work by Saul Steinberg, R.O. Blechman, and Liana Finck - a “family of cartoonists” - it demonstrates how a line-drawn, representational cartooning language can transform the act of looking into a participatory experience that interrogates issues …

Imaginary Friends: Engaging The Unconscious Mind Through Picture Books, Cleonique Hilsaca

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

“Imaginary Friends” investigates the potential of the ‘imaginary friend’ as a narrative device in picture book storytelling. By combining the research of Marjorie Taylor on ‘imaginary companions’ and Lois Rostow Kuznets on ‘toy animals’ in literature, I seek to give form to the concept of the imaginary friend, to then explore the phenomenon further by delving into the intellectual heritage of the imaginary and the unconscious mind. To explain how the imaginary friend works as a visual metaphor in illustrated narratives, I borrow principles of image-making and their effect on children, as discussed by Martin Salisbury, Morag Styles, and Molly …

Firing The Canon: Queer Representation In The Magical Girl Genre, Lena C. Humble

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

This research delves into the impact queer representation in the shoujo (Japanese for young girl) genre has on audiences. More specifically, the “Magical Girl” (a subgenre of shoujo) genre’s main focus is about ordinary girls whose lives are drastically changed when they are given magical powers. One of the major plot points of magical girl media is how these girls find balance with their ordinary lives with their magical alter egos, and their attempts to keep these lives separate. Much of this media follows a small group of girls, who tend to build deeply emotionally intimate relationships as they share …

Illustrated Nonfiction In The Screen Age, Katie Klaras

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

The addictive qualities of our phones and incessant demands on our attention pose consequential challenges to individuals and the collective. In the age of screens, what are illustrated nonfiction books uniquely positioned to offer modern audiences? This essay seeks to understand how the genre can serve as one possible antidote to the infinite scroll. I examine the qualities of three illustrated nonfiction texts: Abbi Jacobson’s I Might Regret This, Shaina Feinberg and Julia Rothman’s How We Got By, and Nora Krug’s Diaries of War. The essay considers how the slower pace of the reading experience, the careful curation of image …

Comics As Confrontation : A Case For Breaking Silence Around Sexual Abuse In Comics, Manimanjari Sengupta

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

In this essay I will provide an overview of the socio-cultural and legal attitude towards sexual violence in India, as evidence of the need for bringing survivor’s narratives out into public view. I will look closely at Indian comic artist Shromona Das’s Naming and Shaming (2018) , American artist Phoebe Gloeckner’s A Child’s Life and Other Stories (1998), and my own comic Feral (2025), to elucidate the ways in which comics are a potent medium for survivors to confront, not only our own memories by stringing together a sequential narrative, but also the audience, with the visualization of a lived …

The Dragon's Eye: A Quest For Tabletop Role-Playing's Visual Culture, Benjamin Kent

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

The world of Tabletop Role-Playing Games (TRPGs) has always been defined and dominated by Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), the game that pioneered the industry in the 1970’s. Meanwhile during this time, independent games have consistently innovated new ways of utilizing this highly creative field both in contrast and in concert with D&D’s growth. As a decade-long player and developing creator of these games, I hold a vested interest in furthering our understanding of them. The visual aspects of these products are well-documented and celebrated, but in this essay I attempt to define the overall landscape of TRPG visual culture …

Buffalo Bill And The Great Western Story, Sarah A. Hawkes

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

The author investigates how narratives are constructed through visual culture to better understand her own history. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show acts as a case study demonstrating how “history” is often a narrative established by those in power. These narratives often essentialize their subjects, leading to erasure and exclusion. Sitting Bull and Annie Oakley are used as examples of figures that have become caricatures in service to a greater narrative about the American West. This paper argues for the inefficacy of considering any one narrative as “history” instead recommending a close reading of many different narratives. Three different Western figures, …

America Is Banking On You! Selling American Ideology During World War Ii, David W. Maupin

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

This essay uncovers advertising from World War II found in tear sheet archives. Through deep reading and contextual analysis, this essay seeks to determine what these advertisements—found in magazines, newspapers, and posters—were asking their viewers to do in response to the global conflict of the 1940s. It argues that advertisers used emotions and racism to entice citizens of specific classes to invest, enlist, and align their values with American ideals. The creators of these advertisements were hired by American companies, who used government sponsored tactics to woo citizens to the American Ideology while keeping the corporate brand in the public …

The Liminal Space Of Dreams: Narration Of Dreams In Graphic Novel And Comics, Muyang Li

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

This essay explores the dream as a narrative in graphic novels and comics, examining its character as a subconscious experience depicted by means of visual storytelling. Focusing on psychological, symbolic, and aesthetic functions of dream narrative, I demonstrate that dream narration offers an allegory by means of which both creator and reader can explore issues of identity, desire and trauma in an intimate and healing way. In analyzing these functions of dream narration, I draw upon ideas from theorists such as C.J Jung, Freud and other scholars who have engaged their work on the psychological perspective of the experience of …

The Kinship Of Creatives, Saba Saif Ur Rehman

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

This research essay contends that artists and creative individuals must recognize their agency in shaping societal narratives, particularly during times of technological and political upheaval. The essay draws on the insights and contributions of visionaries like Walter Benjamin, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Tomm Moore to emphasize the power of imagination and creativity in addressing real-world issues. It argues that previous technological advances have often reinforced hierarchical and oppressive systems, benefitting a select few while neglecting the masses. As we enter the fourth Industrial Revolution, this essay calls the artists to reclaim their tools from being co-opted for exclusionary and …

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 …