Sculpture Commons^™

On The Cover: Artist's Statement For Portrait Of Mental Illness, Kristin Donato

The Graduate Review

This body of artwork uses 3D forms to visualize the impact of mental illness. Altered forms of cast heads and personal stories depicted through artist books examines how mental illness affects those suffering from an illness, as well as those acting as support systems.

A Portrait Of Mental Illness: Artist Notebook I, Kristin Donato

The Graduate Review

This body of artwork uses 3D forms to visualize the impact of mental illness. Altered forms of cast heads and personal stories depicted through artist books examines how mental illness affects those suffering from an illness, as well as those acting as support systems.

A Portrait Of Mental Illness: Artist Notebook Ii, Kristin Donato

The Graduate Review

This body of artwork uses 3D forms to visualize the impact of mental illness. Altered forms of cast heads and personal stories depicted through artist books examines how mental illness affects those suffering from an illness, as well as those acting as support systems.

A Portrait Of Mental Illness: Artist Notebook Iii, Kristin Donato

The Graduate Review

This body of artwork uses 3D forms to visualize the impact of mental illness. Altered forms of cast heads and personal stories depicted through artist books examines how mental illness affects those suffering from an illness, as well as those acting as support systems.

Median, Amy Petit

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Median reflects my observation of changing forms of communication in the digital age and how that affects personal interaction, expression, and the value that we assign to objects. The sculptural objects in this exhibit stem from my formative experiences of frequent relocation, as well as a professional background in the fast-paced technological world. These factors, combined with contemplative and repetitive sculptural practices, help illustrate the anxiety and discomfort that can accompany rapid advances in communication practices. My research situates my work within contemporary art by drawing on the relevance of indexical signs, reliquaries, current discussions of communication in the digital …

Elements, Stephen Anthony Geffre

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This thesis consisted of a gallery exhibition titled “Elements” featuring sculpture created by Stephen Geffre for his Master of Arts in Sculpture from University of Minnesota-Mankato, located in Mankato Minnesota. The exhibition ran from October 16, 2017 to October 31, 2017. The artwork explored sacredness---sacredness rooted in the natural, sacredness rooted within the minds of human kind, sacredness in the form of the classical elements Earth, Air, Fire and Water.

All the work was created in part with material that was going to be thrown away or sold at a fraction of its cost because of its imperfection.

Pebbles Is A Girl That Doesn't Know Anything, Grace A. Kubilius

Theses and Dissertations

I am not quite sure how to be a woman. It’s complicated, contradictory and highly surveilled. I make videos, sculptures and wearable objects that attempt to rationalize my female identity. The body is a sustained fixture in my work: as an armature, as an absent actor for constructed environments, as fragment and as the literal inclusion of my image. It is through these various modes of dis/embodiment that I negotiate the complexities of gendered existence. Crumbling ceramic and paper objects, pieced fabric forms, videos, beauty products, and delicate flowers reference splintered narratives and unwieldy terrains. I consider the idea of …

Toilet Talk, Michael Blake

Theses and Dissertations

Toilet Talk explores both formal and autobiographical themes related to desire, sexuality, and the relationship between public and private space. My work and research aims to reposition and queer the industrial object and its promotion of hyper masculine ideals.

Stories Of Otherness, Lee Ann Harrison

Graduate Theses

The thesis exhibition Stories of Otherness is an interactive installation created using dance, music, photography, video, ceramic figurative sculptures, and armatures of found objects to create a voyeuristic and physically participatory experience of situational art. Many artists from various art and literary genres influence my research and art, including Petah Coyne, Mona Hatoum, Pina Bausch, Mia Michaels, and Jeanette Winterson. The multi-faceted combination of art mediums and artists inspires me to create a mixed media, multi-dimensional installation for an immersive participant’s experience as a source for awareness, empathy, reflection, and ultimately as a “call to action” evoking change.

This thesis …

Vita Via Dolorosa, Vivianne Lee Carey

Graduate Theses

This thesis statement accompanies my MFA project entitled Vita via Dolorosa, which features a glass and steel horse-drawn carriage sculpture that metaphorically depicts a woman’s journey through life, from childhood to death. Supporting the carriage, which is the primary sculpture in this exhibit, is a performance piece that addresses the transformation of this woman by means of sculpture, music and drama. This largely autobiographical multidisciplinary exhibit uses the metaphor to explore the passage of time symbolically through the dark, aged-color palette, the iconic imagery, and the combination of animate and inanimate sculptural resources such as horses, steel and glass. …

2016 Forces, Scott Yarbrough

Forces

No abstract provided.

When The Wind Stops, Qwist Joseph

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

The sculpture I make exemplifies my interest in objects, their creation and our tendency to covet them. Humans have developed elaborate and diverse systems to categorize and dictate the value of things. As a culture we elevate and protect Art and its display is a platform in which this object obsession is exaggerated. Through the podium of art exhibition, I explore the idea of object-ness. I question the parameters around what defines something as an object, and more specifically what’s necessary to transform that thing into Art. Further, I wonder where the line is drawn between Art and the ordinary; …

Tangled Knot Tied, Shalya Marsh

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

I make formal studies in layering that use abstraction and visual symbols as a metaphor for the complex relationship we as individuals have with language, interpretation, and human interaction. My current work explores ideas of connection through representations of knots and tangles. While knots can signify protection and strength, tangles allude to anxiety.

I rely heavily on format and structure as a means of conveying content. Repetition, contrast, and layering of elements suggest the complexity of relationships. The work is composed of a series of tied knots or tangles, single knot forms in multiple variations, or a combination of multiple …

Maybe The Gate Could Be A Fan, Erin L. Schoenbeck

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

I notice with quiet thrill an individual object or shape such as a railing, an odd pattern in the cement, a handle that does not match the rest, or a surprisingly decorative form intended only for a useful purpose. Choosing a form for its potential function, strange shape or particular color, I filter it through my aesthetic. My mental repetition of the day’s stresses is changed into lighthearted wondering. Maybe that gate I passed could become a beautiful fanned shape, its silhouette in gold and pale green. It could be so tiny its functional life outdoors is transformed into delicate …

Lithic, Megan Nelle Moriarty

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The creative works of Lithic employ nature as a visual meeting place to investigate the connection of art objects to the human spirit, explore a balance between scientific naturalism and spiritual abstraction, and work to expand on the use and craftsmanship of consumer and post-consumer materials.

The goal of any art work is to connect with the viewer on a spiritual level and, as an artist, the search for that relationship always brings me back to nature. The natural world is a place for moments of shared ‘awe’ and wonder. It is in nature that questions of human origin and …

So Much Apparent Nothing, Emily Mcbride

Theses and Dissertations

This document contains reflections on motivations behind selected works leading up to and including my thesis exhibition so much apparent nothing. Through journal excerpts and analysis of my own psychology, I attempt to put into words my thoughts concurrent to my making, indirect as they may be. The following text shares my personal conflicts and ideologies surrounding art-making, the permanence of objects, and the acceptance of an identity in flux.

Silent Protest And The Art Of Paper Folding: The Golden Venture Paper Sculptures At The Museum Of Chinese In America, Sandra Cheng

Publications and Research

Housed in the Museum of Chinese in America is the Fly to Freedom collection of paper art, which were produced by a traditional folk method of Chinese paper folding. The 123 paper works were created by detainees of the Golden Venture, a freighter used to smuggle undocumented immigrants into the U.S. On the evening of June 6, 1993, the ship ran aground off the Rockaways in New York City and nearly 300 migrants, gaunt from the four-month ordeal at sea, poured out of the cramped windowless hold of the vessel. Several drowned that night, a few escaped, but the majority …

Closed For Business, Tyler Schrandt

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Closed for Business is an installation which creates an immersive environment that awards the curious. The inspiration for the exhibition came from local industry and human tendency. In likeliness of a defunct factory, the installation transforms the gallery into a dimly lit mysterious space. Using mostly objects found on local farms and in everyday households, a narrative takes shape. The question "what happened here?" looms as you investigate the space looking for clues. With a keen eye for observation, you navigate the room and stumble upon the office of a misguided -- and missing -- entrepreneur. As you internalizing the …

Artscience, Dustin Swiers

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

My thesis show opened on Friday, March 11, 2016 at the 410 project's art gallery, located in downtown Mankato.

The artwork consisted of sculptures displayed on pedestals, hanging on the walls, sitting on specifically constructed arrangements, and hanging from the ceiling. The materials I used to create these sculptures have a dramatically contrasting appearance, but have one universal similarity. At some point most of the materials used were liquid or fluid. I used metals, ceramics, hand blown glass, plastics, and wax. I like to work with these materials in that fluid state because of the added flexibility and forgiveness they …

Concerning The Interaction Of Forms, Luke Splinter

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

"Concerning the Interaction of Forms" is exactly what is in my mind when creating and thinking about work. I am concerned with all of the interactions that can be made when thinking about and looking at forms. How do the forms interact with one another? How do they interact with the space they are placed in? How do they interact with the viewer? These are the questions that concern me the most when creating work

When making work I do so with the help of basic geometric shapes, mathematic ratios, and the feeling I get from the form as it …

Cold Lapse, Tressa Jones

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

cold lapse addresses the abstract notions of time and loss while conveying the value of observing the present. The postmodern view of time, the grid’s vernacular, and the aesthetics of postminimalism are my foundation for communicating time’s passage and its consequential sensations of absence. The duration of a slow drip, the cycle of breath and the sequential motion of a hand folding paper each mark passing moments. By observing these signs the phenomenon of time may be appreciated. Care and ephemerality in the work require the viewer’s sensitivity when encountering and witnessing it, much like the demands of observing the …

The Curiosity Of Con, Petrified Breath, And An Accident Known As Blue., Steven Randall

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis installation emerged from an interest in visualizing breath. The resulting work came to exist at the intersection between art, biology, and performance.

The unicorn tapestries were used as a generative point of departure to explore the preservation and transformation of images through time, by time, and with time. Reproductions of the six tapestries were each etched into paper and then submerged into solutions of Phenol Red dye, Ferric Ferrocyanide (also known as Prussian Blue), and various forms of sodium chloride. Exhaled breath was used to encrust these images of the tapestries into physical objects which gradually crystallized and …

Queering Sugar: Kara Walker’S Sugar Sphinx And The Intractability Of Black Female Sexuality, Amber Jamilla Musser

Publications and Research

This essay analyzes the controversy surrounding artist Kara Walker’s 2014 installation, A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby, to unpack the pleasures and dangers that subtend discussions of black female sexuality. What Walker announced as a tribute to the labor of brown and black bodies produced myriad conversations about pleasure, danger, and black female sexuality. Most art critics argued that the piece reclaimed black female agency; many visitors criticized the work (and the public response to it) as disrespectful and problematic. In the essay, I argue that both of these responses highlight the difficulty of talking about black female …

Amassing Subsistence: Creating An Environment Through Objects And Time, Matilda J. Alexander

Senior Independent Study Theses

No abstract provided.

Elaborations On Thought Process And Practice, George A. Schwab

Theses and Dissertations

An extended statement describing the thought process and practice behind the sculptural work of artist George A. Schwab. Includes short descriptions and documentation of work installed during the Fall 2015 Thesis exhibition at CUNY Hunter's 205 Hudson Street Gallery.

Light Sensitive, Andrew Thompson

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

I am an excremental artist. I do not mean an artist who works with feces or is interested in manure but one whose artwork is expelled through the results of process. As a photographer, I am not as interested in indexing a location, a person or a moment as I am dissolving the structure of photography through the manipulation of photographic materials. I typically photograph landscapes that catch my attention for a myriad of reasons. The commonality between these images is anonymity of place. Hints of location are always present but never accentuated, instead their purpose is akin to a …

The Hero's Journey, Alan Van Fleet

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

My ongoing series of assemblages are an expression my modern mythology through the juxtaposition of esoteric symbols and my collection of beloved action figures. Though myth is founded in partial truths and allegories, it has the unique capability to speak about our relationships to one another and the universe. My artwork conceives of anime, comics, and videos games as part of our contemporary mythology.

Inspired by a fusion of pop culture and spirituality, I also draw on the magical properties attributed to flowers, gemstones and other materials to create shrines, altars, and other objects. Juxtaposing these properties, found in my …

Performing Binaries, Humberto Reynoso

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

I take a critical view of sociopolitical and cultural issues dealing with homoeroticism andgay politics. I explore gender theories in order to further understand what it means to bemasculine or feminine and how it affects my placement in society. I use art as a tool forexpressing sexual freedom while questioning traditional sexual identity. I'm interested in exploring ideas of the oppressor and the oppressed, and how power becomes an inevitable force (in every society) that creates a hierarchy, consequently establishing control. But what is power? According to various definitions, power is an entity that possesses and or exercises authority or …

What's Left Over, Bryanna Jaramillo

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The MFA thesis exhibition titled, What's Left Over, is comprised of a series of drawings as well as a large painted sculptural installation assembled as a child's fantasy world. The work explores the roots of creativity through the lens of childhood play by assembling an invented world named Lola. By exploring the relationship between the real and the imaginary, the work manifests childhood memories into a form that can be studied and better understood. Lola is an elaborate but clearly handmade world that explores an unresolved past.

Noise., Laura Katherine Polaski

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

My research is in the realm of the psychological, the emotional and way these drives manifest physically. The works in Noise. aims to give a physical representation to the non-physical. Research on Affect Theory and the teachings of Silvan Tomkins were paramount to understanding emotional drives and the ways in which they manifest.

The purpose of this research is to understand how emotions are generated and communicated and to ask if specific emotions can be generated upon viewing inanimate objects. I create abstract figurative sculpture, which imitate emotion that has no specific physicality. These works exist with one foot in …