Painting Commons^™

Cascade, Amanda Barajas '24

Distinguished Student Work - Visual Arts

Painting

Punished, Madeline Lytle

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

No abstract provided.

Iphis And Ianthe, Sayantan Basu

The Laureate

No abstract provided.

Asiya, Sayantan Basu

The Laureate

No abstract provided.

Wound-Dwelling: Empowerment Through Masochistic Experiences, Nizlyn

MFA in Visual Arts Theses

The psychoanalytic concept of the Skin Ego Theory describes the skin as a passage for pain and pleasure to travel through. Remnants of external experiences as well as internal struggles affect the penetrable barrier of the somatic wrapping and leave inscriptions on the flesh. Through my work, I have been exploring the skin’s ability to protect, envelope, and inscribe meaning through my papercuts, oil paintings, and clay sculptures. I procure the marks on my body through kink and BDSM, which then influence the work. Though my bruises may fade with time, my skin becomes tougher. By recontextualizing Skin Ego Theory …

When You're Young, Andrew Zhang '22

Distinguished Student Work - Visual Arts

Painting

The Space Between, Joanne D. Laudolff

Graduate Artistry Projects and Performances

"The Space Between". This paper explains the process and techniques, the structural concepts, the main objectives, historical influences and philosophical and aesthetic concepts of my Master of Arts show. This show was influenced by care taking of my mother as she transitioned to the other side. The oil and cold wax and mixed media paintings depict this journey.

Inhumane, Jordan Brown

Master's Theses or Doctor of Nursing Practice

My Goal is to bring awareness to the plight of wild creatures who have lost their habitats due to pollution and urban sprawl. I will be making porcelain vessels that influence people to think about their role on the environment. Both terrestrial and aquatic life has been impacted by humans through poaching, non-traditional medical practices, and human activity in the ocean. By making impressionable clay urns, I hope to bring light to these issues that affect animals. Through research I have been enthused by the steep historical forms from Greece, China, and Europe. Their exceptional skill and knowledge of the …

Community Through Commonality: Growth Beyond The Academic While In College, Lekesha Parkman

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

I’ve drawn on the knowledge I have gained while attending The University of Akron to complete this project. Before I became a student, I carried myself differently but in my years here I have grown in a variety of areas and have also had the privilege of seeing some of my classmates grow in similar ways. My project is multifaceted and each piece is necessary to the other components. It consists of an essay, interviews, photography and full size portraits. During this process I hoped to convey an appreciation for people and their experiences. The participants included in my project …

A Renaissance: The Absurd Retelling Of Mostly True Events, Erica R. Hitzman

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Throughout the following you will be taken on a fantastical retelling of the exhibition A Renaissance, and some of what lead up to it. Through the eyes of various shifting perspectives you will explore the relationships between the artist, her art, and the viewer in the hopes of unveiling how the work plays into feminist theory, its place in the Zeitgeist, and the motivations behind it. Each perspective is formatted differently, to visually mirror the shift in perspective. Presented in the first person and aligned to the right, the account of the artist discusses the process, emotion, and inspiration behind …

Quit Watching Me, Madeline Lytle

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

No abstract provided.

Women's March Series, Maddison Tenney

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

No abstract provided.

Tangible Transformation: Change In Intangible Times, Rhonda R. Dass

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Pulling the intangible cloud to the forefront, this exhibition transforms the ethereal image of the cloud into the tangible paper and canvas representations that flirt between what is and what can be. I combine techniques from drawing, painting, and papermaking, to create clouds that leave the heavens and solidify and yet spark the imagination in new directions. Presented as my thesis exhibition, my exploration of the ever-shifting cloud scape helps express my understandings in and about a transforming world of change. Two years ago, when the world turned sideways, I was in the middle of a series of paintings and …

Neosublime, Reframing The Philosophical, Kathy Varadi

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Why have the sunsets and sunrises become so amazingly colorful and awe inspiring recently? Eighteenth century philosophers said such events were examples of the sublime. They defined the sublime as that which is the most absolutely great combined with an underlying element of fear usually caused by the actions of God. This infers that the sublime is something that you can’t fully understand or wrap your head around and leaves you speechless and spell bound. Contemporary art critics say that the sublime is no longer applicable to art because it has been overused. I disagree, and in my art, I …

Weird Critters: A Visual Narrative Inspired By Paleontology And Teratology, Kate Murray

Honors Program Theses

Attempts to fuse fantasy and science fiction art work tend to be unidirectional. The artists begin with things that don’t make sense and then force them to make sense to the audience. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways. In some images, dinosaurs are given mechanically sound contraptions; dragons are given tendons, and basilisks are drawn with surprising accuracy. It applies science to the fictional to create an image that is plausible. However, my experience with developmental biology and paleontology suggests that it is equally possible to take it in the other direction and begin with things that …

Interrogating The Light Bugs, Ana C. Villagomez

Theses and Dissertations

My paintings engage with ideas of time, memory and displacement. Intricately painted works appear to cover other layers of information hidden underneath through the act of rubbing, masking and erasing with unconventional tools such as scour pads, toilet brushes and rags, creating a surface that resembles a complex topographical map. But unlike a traditional cartographer, I seek to map my inner world.

Stations Or There Goes Nothing, Jeremy D. Lawson

Theses and Dissertations

Jeremy Lawson uses bright, expressive, abstract painting in conversation with minimalist sculpture to encourage a meditation on the death of the self, the potential for it's transformation, and the struggle to maintain the tools beyond language necessary to experience the sublime.

A Dumb Mouth From Which The Teeth Have Been Pulled, Anna Sofie Jespersen

Theses and Dissertations

This paper consists of a series of scenes in which various narratives with proximity to the truth plays out. within it I aim to articulate the dispersed subjectivity and forensic aspects to my work, as well looking at the perverseness in the desire for proximity to the fantasy, utilizing the self as a vehicle of desire.

Song From A Chamber, Miguel A. Martinez

Theses and Dissertations

My work weaves a biomythography through figurative reimagining of syncretist religious iconographies. This thesis installation is composed of a mural reliquary in which a collection of twenty works on paper is displayed. The project exposes abstract dimensions of body and spirit in relation to my experience as a gay immigrant.

Paralyzed Within A Plastic World, Gena Leib

Honors Projects

Our oceans are one of the largest ecosystems found on our planet, and they are also one of the driving forces to a balanced planet. I believe that it is very important to restore our oceans to the once clean environment, and it is up to mankind to make that first step to do so soon and without hesitation. I believe that many people are uniformed on the topics of pollution, and it is important to bring attention to the issues through a perspective that society can see. Social media has had a huge influence on helping this, but for …

Water Color: Inspiring Conservation Of Freshwater Ecosystems By Painting With Algae, Kate Lochridge

Honors Projects

“Water Color: Inspiring Conservation of Freshwater Systems by Painting With Algae” is a project that focuses on raising awareness of harmful algal blooms in Lake Erie through the creation of algae-based paint. Its goal is to provide a multidisciplinary outlet for understanding complex interactions between the causes, effects, and solutions of Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs). The novel part of this project is the creation of watercolor paint from algae cells. This paint was used to create algae-based artwork that facilitates an aesthetic interaction with the science of HABs when other informative materials- such as journal articles- can be confusing and …

Seen And Unseen, The Milspouse Project, Michelle Henning

Senior Honors Projects

MICHELLE HENNING (Art)

Seen and Unseen, The MilSpouse Project

Sponsor: Lilla Samson (Art and Art History, Emerita)

I was a military spouse for 20 years. To honor this closing chapter of my life, I developed a project to interview and paint several military friends. My intention was to create a theme of the overlooked, often unseen, spouse. This is not absolute, and it is not to detract from the service of the soldier; but Military Spouses are often misunderstood or mis-represented. I hope to celebrate the inspiring people that form the group known as "MilSpouses". For that reason, I interviewed …

Non-Fungible Tokens On The Blockchain, Talyssa Janae Cruz

Graphic Communication

The premise of this project is to see how rising artists would perform in this new method of sharing and selling art. With the skills learned in Graphic Communication, the deliverables would be a well-marketed artistic brand and cohesive art collection that will be launched on the Cardano blockchain. Whether the collection succeeds or not, it would be an excellent learning experience to see if the collection will sell. If it succeeds, the information and findings would be gathered to conclude if it is feasible for rising creators to put Non-fungible Tokens on the blockchain.

The Myth Of ‘Mare Nostrum’: Themes And Exhibitions, Legacy And Experimentation In The Construction Of Mediterranean Fascist Italy, Aurora Roscini Vitali

Artl@s Bulletin

This essay aims to analyse the ways in which the myth of the Mare nostrum entered into the artistic iconography of the early twentieth century. It was highly amplified during the Fascist regime thanks to some relevant graphic works, monumental commissions and, above all, temporary exhibitions that were characterized by a propagandistic overtone. The representation of a Mediterranean (in fact Italian) common identity became a fundamental part of a pervasive political strategy. The stylistic choices were conditioned both by the need to emphasize the glorious return of “Latinness” and the incardination of the “new” fascist modernity.

Resistance, Catita Guardado

The Tuxedo Archives

No abstract provided.

Where Are The Women? A Feminist Field Guide To The Museum, Taylor Weaver

Theses

Linda Nochlin’s seminal 1971 essay, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” was at the fore of the great battle cries of many feminist scholars that drew attention to the limitation’s that female artist’s face in the art world. Women have systematically been left out of the art historical narrative while their male counterparts remain at the forefront.

There are many women that are very prominently represented in museums. They are largely nude and have been represented by male artists. While I do not argue that nudity in paintings should not exist, I do insist that museum goers become …

In The Archives: The Artist’S Scrapbook, Molly Mcclain

History: Faculty Scholarship

The article discusses the scrapbook created by artist Charles A. Reiffel (1862-1942), a landscape painter working in early twentieth-century San Diego.

Bonded By Nature: The Prevalence Of Landscape Subjects Within Abstract Expressionism And Their Sources In American Art, Aileen F. Marcantonio

Theses and Dissertations

Landscape subjects reappear throughout Abstract Expressionism. Although it is often overlooked, landscapes were perhaps a natural subject for a group of artists that were known to work from their environment. When we focus on the landscape subjects, we gain a better understanding of Abstract Expressionism and its place within the canon of American art.

Painting Outside Of The Lines: How Race Assignment Can Be Rethought Through Art, Giovanni Mella-Velazquez

Gettysburg Social Sciences Review

For centuries art has been used to make us think about our own human experiences. Unfortunately, works usually reflect the era which they were painted in; this has led to various artists showing, maintaining, and therefore reinforcing racist thoughts in our cultures. Art can be used to create a new narrative for our race assignments and their meanings. The idea of loving one's roots has been prevalent in many cultures, but in art form a disconnect between history and the everyday experience can arise which could miss the mark in helping us redefine our own race. Therefore, artwork which empowers …

The Anxiety Of Presenting Identity, Savannah Fleming

PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas

This work explores aspects of Queer identity, historical reflection, and acceptance through painting, printmaking, and collage. Savannah Fleming's artwork intends to reclaim art history and alter it to include those excluded from its canon. Through the use of prints, paint, and collage, they create works that address the bias of art history, while tackling contemporary problems of identity and acceptance. References and alterations to art history are her way of addressing the erasure of Queer and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) from the art historical canon, while battling with modern-day confines on individuality.