Printmaking Commons^™

Shapes That Hide Their Shadows, Jennifer Blaine

Theses and Dissertations

shapes that hide their shadows concerns itself with the mutability of memory. The complexities of girlhood to womanhood, and the way we are shaped by place and space, are explored through the artist recounting childhood memories connected to her grandparents' hometowns. Divided into three different sections, the artist discusses drawing as medium, creating a lexicon through using visual symbols, and the logistics of building your own archive.

"Where Did Your Christ Come From?", Kamara V. Townes

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This written document is the accompanying thesis for my Master of Fine Arts Exhibition, “WHERE DID YOUR CHRIST COME FROM?”, shown at Gallery 937 in downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (displayed April 5th-June 9th, 2024). Through painting, sculpture, and installation, I rely on an intuitive artmaking practice to create work that makes commentary on race, gender and identity. This thesis documents my research on contemporary influences, experimentation with materials and my point of view in conversation with intersectional feminism while navigating institutional racism.

Conceptually the work of my thesis is deeply influenced by womanism and Black culture, which informs my exploration …

Body. Freedom. Choice: Creating Artwork In Post-Roe America, Erin Sedra

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

I knew from a young age that I never wanted children. Whenever I expressed my disinterest in motherhood, I was often met with bewilderment, disapproval, and hostility. The church I was raised in taught me that my value and worth as a woman directly correlated with the power of my birthing hips. This fundamentalist upbringing has significantly shaped my relationship with my femininity, my body, and my artwork. When I feel powerless, turning to my art gives me a sense of control and self-expression. This body of work began as a reaction to the overturning of Roe v. Wade and …

Visibility, Jamie Valdez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

I am a woman, activist, artist, mother, and wife. My art practice questions the role of

institutions in disseminating outdated traditions and unfair rituals in relation to women. Bringing

visibility to what is ignored, I create works that are critical to the unfair expectations that society

fosters, expectations which ultimately oppress women vis- -vis the (art) institution. Through

different conceptual strategies, my work questions what society has taught us about gender

roles and explores the pedagogies that our institutionalized education has systematically

perpetuated for women and girls from early educational experiences.

Betwixt & Between., Xuanyi Wang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, I will discuss the process of learning, borrowing, and exploring the fusion between styles that emerged from the exchange of Eastern and Western civilizations. I will also use the process of transformation and merging of motifs to evoke my thoughts on the identity of immigrants. In addition, the essay will also discuss the similarities between traditional Chinese and Western designs metaphorically. This thesis will also explain why I use IUDs for pattern creation and provide views on the body ownership of women in the East and West. I will also consider the evolution and reflection of the …

Sapping, Smudging, Staining: A Feminized Body, Breslin Shea Bell

Masters Theses

This book—of poetry, prose, and lists—muses on the effects of liquidity and leakiness of a feminized body. By bringing echo narrative, illegibility, de-telling, and that which is continuously wet to the viewer’s body and space, this book and accompanying multimedia installation provides a lens to consider reproductive rights, body autonomy, and gender-based aggression and violence. Work of matter and color investigates interiority, both bodily and spatial, as it relates to surface, access, and space-making.

Turning Tides, Lauren Whitmore

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Synthesizing personal narrative, sociological phenomenon, and art historical analysis, Turning Tides examines the relationship between power dynamics and sexual assault. Inequities and injustices with regard to the handling of sexual assault, and the norms that allow this issue to be pervasive, are woven throughout the cultural fabric of the United States. Feminists and feminist activist artists in the 1970s brought the matters women, and other marginalized groups, were facing to the forefront of political and social dialogue. The resulting work left an indelible mark on public perceptions and allowed for other activists and artists to build upon the foundations; creating …

Trace., Kcj Szwedzinski

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Trace utilizes autoethnography to investigate aspects of Judaism to discover how one decides what to embrace, embody, or deny from inherited legacies. Autoethnography attempts to combine quantitative and qualitative data in order to systematically analyze and describe personal experience. The artist acting as Ba’alei Kushiah, or question bearer, uses Talmudic philosophy as a methodology and approach to art making. This research is self-referential; using Jewish thought to ask questions about Judaism. Judaism, often existing in an in between place with outward characteristics that reflect regional influences, facilitates a dialogue about whether there are relative or absolute delineations within and between …

Cycles Of Growth And Decay, And Changing The Beautiful To The Grotesque: Installation Through The Lens Of Printmaking, Madeline R. Cochran

All College Thesis Program, 2016-2019

The intention of this project is to create an installation informed by printmaking processes and to explore the tension between what is fragile and delicate and what is decaying and visceral. Specifically, I am working with materials I find delicate and beautiful including: fine Japanese paper, lace, yarn and embroidery floss. I am coating and manipulating these materials with wax, epoxy-resin and baby oil to give the work a fleshy and unsettling feel. Through the process of working with these materials, I have created paper sculptures made from a mold cast from my own torso, miniature books made from monoprints …

Raeleen Kao Interview, Beena Patel

Asian American Art Oral History Project

BIO: Raeleen Kao is a drawer, printmaker, and amateur competitive eater aka glutton residing in Chicago with a Charles Brand etching press, a red tabby, and forty plants.

Her prints and drawings have been exhibited in museums and galleries across the country most notably at the International Museum of Surgical Science, the Monmouth Museum of Art, Bert Green Fine Art, the Smith College Museum of Art, Tory Folliard Gallery, Firecat Projects, and Normal Editions Workshop. Her work has been represented at SELECT Fair New York, the Editions and Artist Books Fair in New York, the Cleveland Fine Print Fair, the …

French Women In Art: Reclaiming The Body Through Creation/Les Femmes Artistes Françaises : La Réclamation Du Corps À Travers La Création, Liatris Hethcoat

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The research I have conducted for my French Major Senior Thesis is a culmination of my passion for and studies of both French language and culture and the history and practice of Visual Arts. I have examined, across the history of art, the representation of women, and concluded that until the 20^th century, these representations have been tools employed by the makers of history and those at the top of the patriarchal system, used to control women’s images and thus women themselves. I survey these representations, which are largely created by men—until the 20^th century. I discuss pre-historical …