Art Practice Commons^™

Complexities Of Chinese Contemporary Art, Hongjia Chen

Master's Projects and Capstones

Throughout the history of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), art has always been state-dominated and driven by governmental and political agendas. In comparison to fellow artists in the Western world, historically, Chinese artists have lacked the freedom to express their passion and creativity through artistic forms. The contemporary art movement in China, however, maneuvers around this challenge and provides a more positive direction—one in which artists have a stronger voice and economic benefits are combined with governmental support and encouragement of art activities that enhance social capital and one’s habitus. To some extent, this is changing, with the first …

Strange Woods, Song Park

Graduate School of Art Theses

I am interested in searching for images of women that have not been adequately represented in visual art. As a visual artist, I am directed by my sense of sight to investigate and know something. I like to challenge myself to visualize things that do not already have a visual representation. It has been frustrating for me to create images of women, and I have experienced a deep ambivalence in response to the different images of women I have encountered. The socially and culturally constructed images of women that I have internalized and those that have developed from my own …

Representations Of Mainstream And Marginalized Subjects In The Work Of Diane Arbus, Grace Short

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

This thesis considers the photographs of the twentieth-century photographer, Diane Arbus. In America during the 1950s and 60s, Arbus photographed both marginalized and mainstream subjects including dwarfs, giants, transvestites, nudists, debutants, socialites, and celebrities. At one point in her career, she expressed an interest in family portraiture and, indeed, a number of her images depict families.

Scholars who have written about Arbus, such as Susan Sontag, Carol Armstrong, Anthony W. Lee, and John Pultz, have formulated theories about Arbus’s motivations, although their findings focus on individual features of her work. Sontag argued that Arbus exploited her unorthodox sitters whereas Armstrong …

The Us’S Economic Promises Are Over: An Interview With Miguel Luciano, Marisa Lerer, Conor Mcgarrigle

Articles

Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico in September 2017. The island was left without electricity and clean water for months. However, the natural disaster was not the only cause of this lasting devastation. The financial fall-out from predatory loans, which led to Puerto Rico’s inability to invest funds in its own infrastructure, caused an enduring humanitarian disaster. Artist Miguel Luciano (b. 1972) in this interview discusses his work in relation to the 2017 Puerto Rican debt crisis and the legacy of the over 100-year span of Puerto Rico’s colonial status as a US territory, which gives the US disproportionate control over …

How To Be The Perfect Asian Wife!, Sophia Hill

Art and Art History Honors Projects

“How to be the Perfect Asian Wife” critiques exploitative power systems that assault female bodies of color in intersectional ways. This work explores strategies of healing and resistance through inserting one’s own narrative of flourishing rather than surviving, while reflecting violent realities. Three large drawings mimic pervasive advertisement language and presentation reflecting the oppressive strategies used to contain women of color. Created with charcoal, watercolor, and ink, these 'advertisements' contrast with an interactive rice bag filled with comics of my everyday experiences. These documentations compel viewers to reflect on their own participation in systems of power.

Xu Zhen & Madein Company: The Phenomenon Of Artist-Company, Qianfan Gu

Theses and Dissertations

The thesis is about the phenomenon of "artist-company" -- commercial methodologies employed by contemporary artists are determining their artworks. Taking XuZhen as a case study, it attempts to understand the phenomenon through aspects including art autonomy and institutional theories. It argues that "artist-company" is a continuation of institutional critique.

Through My Window, Haiyin Liang

Theses and Dissertations

I convey my thoughts through art jewelry; making jewelry is my language of communication and commemoration. Inspired by historical Chinese art and contemporary jewelry, my practice pays attention to bring classical Chinese aesthetics of hazy poetic and ideal arrangement into the contemporary jewelry field. The attention to detail refers to the quiet contemplation and emotional experiences encouraged by each of my works. Through my research, I use metalsmithing language to communicate with non-precious materials finding my own way of expression and meditation. Meanwhile, I build environments that display jewelry off the body in order to construct a picturesque landscape. The …

Good Game, Greyory Blake

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis and its corresponding art installation, Lessons from Ziggy, attempts to deconstruct the variables prevalent within several complex systems, analyze their transformations, and propose a methodology for reasserting the soap box within the display pedestal. In this text, there are several key and specific examples of the transformation of various signifiers (i.e. media-bred fear’s transformation into a political tactic of surveillance, contemporary freneticism’s transformation into complacency, and community’s transformation into nationalism as a state weapon). In this essay, all of these concepts are contextualized within the exponential growth of new technologies. That is to say, all of these semiotic …

Laminated Paint, Travis R. Austin

Theses and Dissertations

Though we may not perceive it, we are surrounded by material-in-flux. Inert materials degrade and the events that comprise our natural and social environments causally thread into a duration that unifies us in our incomprehension. Sounds reveal ever-present vibrations of the landscape: expressions of the flexuous ground on which we stand.

Invisible Invisibility, Eugina Song

Theses and Dissertations

White America assumes its culture is the default, and Asian culture as foreign and irrelevant. I address Asian invisibility by using canvas structure as a Western framing device of painting, and make this cultural barrier visible by breaking out of the frame. Deriving from Dansaekhwa, I challenge the Western painting structure with materiality.

Artistic Emigration From Portugal To Paris In The First Half Of The 1960s: Six Portuguese Painters From Paris Revisited, Joana Baião

Artl@s Bulletin

This paper proposes to revisit some issues related to the impact of emigration on the paths followed by a group of six Portuguese painters who settled in Paris between 1958 and 1961. To do that, it will analyze and contextualize the evolution of their work in the first half of the 1960’s, and it will recall the small exhibition Seis Pintores Portugueses de Paris that opened in 1966 in Lisbon with the purpose of highlight the particularities of the artistic research that was being developed by those artists in Paris, integrating them into the international artistic movements of the period.

Au-Delà De La Nature : The Blue Fossil Entropic Stories De Julian Charrière, Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou

The Goose

In this short article - case study, I explore the question of how art may help us reflect on the new conception of nature that the Anthropocene confronts us with. I focus on the photographic series The Blue Fossil Entropic Stories I,II,III (2013) by Swiss artist Julian Charrière and its reassessment of an idea of nature inherited from the romantic period. I analyse the way in which these pictures reinterpret romantic landscape painting in order to suggest an equal relation of human and nature, where human and non-human entities hold equal sway. My theoretical framework is based on Timothy Morton’s …

Prevail: In The Moment..., Nicole Stahl

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This body of work is composed of sculptural mixed media objects and scenes that heavily utilize cast glass. These pieces are physical representations of my quest to seek mental balance by focusing on what brings me happiness and comfort while still honoring mortality.

Moldmaking and repetition of process innate within casting and other aspects of this work makes me focus and revisit an idea, repetitively, like a meditation or a prayer. The intense focus required helps combat my anxiety and translates anxious energy into more positive, productive, balanced way of living.

Part of this balance requires the acknowledgment of the …

Summer Light, Sara Dolatabadi

Theses and Dissertations

"Summer Light" is a film about family dynamics. Using light as a defining factor, it looks at the relationship between the director’s parents and her daughter. It is the her response to a desire to record and safeguard intimate moments of an ordinary day before they disappear.

Beginner's Mind, Martin L. Benson

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

My art distills my relationship to spirituality, digital culture, and the practices and side-effects therein, into a simplified visual language. The work manifests in the form of paintings, drawings, and light sculptures. Meditation and mindfulness training are a large part of my influence and interests. I often wonder how mindfulness practice can be mirrored in my artwork, not only in my process for creating the work, but also with what the resulting imagery does for the viewer. My intention is to provide an art form that invites one to look and experience one’s own capacity to observe, without the need …

Material Poetics, Ellen G. Reid

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

quench: /kwen(t)SH/

a : put out, extinguish

b : to put out the light or fire

c : to cool suddenly by immersion

d : to cause to lose heat or warmth

e : to bring to an end typically by satisfying, damping, cooling, or

decreasing

f : to relieve or satisfy with liquid

This is often how projects begin, a haunting idea, word, or experience inundates my consciousness and sub-consciousness. How could the body directly relate to an experience of quenching? This provoked the idea of the extreme sport: freediving. To adequately depict the definition of quenching, any …

Black Matter, Kahlil Irving

Graduate School of Art Theses

History as we know it, is inherited. Racism, fascism, white supremacy, and Eurocentric dominance have been presented as normal and acceptable within our society for many years. This has allowed police officers to execute Black American’s and not be acquitted for their horrendous crimes. As an activist I want to challenge the status quo. As an artist I am interested in investigating how I can present ideas embody or reflect contemporary issues and concerns. Using different colors can aggressively change how an object is perceived. Historical objects hold many important.

I explore many mediums, but an anchor material that I …

Joseph Beuys And Social Sculpture In The United States, Cara M. Jordan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Alongside the rise of the activist movements in the late 1960s, the German artist Joseph Beuys (1921–1986) proposed his concept of “social sculpture” — a method of fostering creativity, aimed at transforming society through interdisciplinary dialogue — as an alternative to the chaotic political, economic, and social life of postwar West Germany. He sought to heal society through a work of art with holistic and spiritual intentions, centered on the belief that art can include the entire process of living and therefore can be created by a wide range of people beyond artists. Although his ideas are understood and even …

I Like America: Painting In The Expanded Field, Isaac Aden

Theses and Dissertations

Using Structuralist theory, Krauss created a Klein group diagram. the diagram included site sculpture, construction, marked sites, and axiomatic structures.Could the same strategy be applied to painting? As I attempted to engage painting from a critical perspective, I formed of a body of work entitled Painting in the Expanded Field.

Restoration, Shannon M. Slaight-Brown

Theses and Dissertations

The marks I make in clay have different characteristics, and the physical mark of one’s fingertips or visual record of the hand is personal and intimate. This visible activity is the evidence of my constant presence and control within each object. Its repetitive meditation produces a private relief from my persistent anxieties. This exploration for me is not only visual, but also physical. This is the start of my infatuation with the idea of pattern. It has its own discrete visual language and modes of communication; and through my research I am developing a method of intercommunication.

Radical Dissonance And Haunted Gestures: Rupture And Reverence In The Artwork Of Aja Mujinga Sherrard, Aja M. Sherrard

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This paper serves to establish the studio practice of Aja Mujinga Sherrard within the framework of conceptual art, touching on the flexible use of media, the subversive or political nature of the work, and its relationship to movements and disciplines such as Feminism and Poststructuralism.

The section entitled “Race and Incoherence” addresses the practice of Radical Dissonance—or the creation of ruptures within commonly accepted concepts and social constructions—through the Costuming Kinship Series, 13≠12≠12.2 (Genetics Project), and Body Double. The section entitled ”Art, Loss, and the Unspeakable” traces an emotional shift in her work and speaks directly to the pieces …

Trauma And Recovery: A Confessional Process, Mia Siracusa

Scripps Senior Theses

This paper is about a confessional painting series, which appropriates Abstract Expressionist techniques, and is on geometric canvas reliefs. The main focus through out the series is the process of my recovery from a traumatic event and the process of the creation of a language through abstraction.

Spreading Seeds: Ai Weiwei's Sunflower Seeds And His Performative Personality Received In The West, Wei Wu

Scripps Senior Theses

In 2010, Ai Weiwei's Sunflower Seeds made its debut in Tate Modern, which promoted Ai to be one of the most famous and respected contemporary Chinese artists. This Conceptual art work has multiple layers of meanings, which all corresponds to the Western expectations for a successful contemporary Chinese artist. In fact, the Western art world has long held bias and stereotypes towards international artists. Ai chose to perform his personality to conform to the expectations and Western ideologies, which brought him international fame. On the other hand, other Chinese artists, including Cai Guo-Qiang and Zhou Chunya, don't totally agree with …

Iain Muirhead, Iain Muirhead

CGU MFA Theses

Artist IAIN MUIRHEAD seeks possibility in a world of massive change. His work cultivates instability and chases an ungrounded experience. Systemic complexity and creative destruction are characteristic. Muirhead uses paint, objects, photography, installation, and video to break apart and reconfigure form and space. Terror often looms. Entropy gives way to emergence.

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 …

Research And Study Of Fashion And Costume History Spanning From Ancient Egypt To Modern Day, Kaitlyn E. Dennis Miss

Posters-at-the-Capitol

Through a generous donation to Morehead State University, research has been conducted on thousands of slides containing images of artwork and artifacts of historical significance. These images span from Egyptian hieroglyphs to the inaugural dress of every first lady of the United States. The slides are in the process of being recorded and catalogued for future use by students in hopes of furthering academic comprehension and awareness of the influence of fashion and costume history through the ages. Special thanks to the family of Gretel Geist Rutledge, faculty mentor Denise Watkins, as well as the Department of Music, Theatre, and …

Let's Keep In Touch : Conversations About Access And Tactility., Whitney E. B. Mashburn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Let’s Keep in Touch: Conversations about Tactility, a project collaboratively organized by social practice artist Carmen Papalia and curator Whitney Mashburn, presents conversations between Papalia and artists selected by Mashburn, in regard to tactile access of the chosen artists’ works. The project aims to challenge visual biases in museum engagement, through dialogue with living artists.

Carmen Papalia takes social practice in a new direction as he applies it to the topic of accessibility. Using the tool of conversation, he creates strategic infrastructural activism and prompts exploration of non-visual perception.

In this thesis, Papalia’s work will be examined and discussed …

Northwest Coast Native American Art: The Relationship Between Museums, Native Americans And Artists, Karrie E. Myers

Museum Studies Theses

Museums today have many responsibilities, including protecting and understanding objects in their care. Many also have relationships with groups of people whose items or artworks are housed within their institutions. This paper explores the relationship between museums and Northwest Coast Native Americans and their artists. Participating museums include those in and out of the Northwest Coast region, such as the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, the Burke Museum, the Royal British Columbia Museum, the American Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Museum. Museum professionals who conducted research for some of these museums included Franz Boas, …

Sondage Autour De L’Exposition Internationale Pour La Palestine De 1978, Nasser Soumi

Artl@s Bulletin

En 1978, une Exposition Internationale pour la Palestine se tint à Beyrouth dans le but d’exposer les œuvres d’artistes internationaux solidaires du peuple palestinien, dans un quartier contrôlé par les Palestiniens et fréquenté par des militants libanais et arabes pro-Palestiniens. Lors de l’exposition, Nasser Soumi réalisa un sondage auprès du public palestino-libanais. A cette époque, son travail artistique ne correspondait pas à l’art révolutionnaire pratiqué par la majorité des artistes palestiniens. Sa préoccupation était la problématique existentielle de l’être humain—y compris celle des Palestiniens. Au-delà du public, il s’agissait donc à travers ce sondage de mieux se comprendre lui-même.

Past Disquiet: From Research To Exhibition, Kristine Khouri, Rasha Salti

Artl@s Bulletin

An exhibition of an exceptional scale and scope took place in Beirut in the middle of the civil war and today, its archival and documentary traces have been almost entirely lost. The International Art Exhibition for Palestine opened in the Spring of 1978, comprising some 200 works donated by artists hailing from nearly 30 countries, to be a seed collection for a museum in exile. This is a transcript of a presentation of the transformation of research into an exhibition format and a virtual walkthrough of the show Past Disquiet: Narratives and Ghosts from the International Art Exhibition for Palestine, …