Art Practice Commons^™

Aaron D. Baldon Mfa Thesis Artist Statement, Aaron Baldon

CGU MFA Theses

What I create comes from without and from within. It can be intellectual and/or experiential. It is informed by research and interpretation, yet it is raw and unaltered. In most cases, the experience flows through my natural synesthesia, wherein I literally see the unseen sensations such as auditory and physical stimuli. I don’t try to create palatable images, because the world is a dark and brutal place, and I have been there. Working with ink or high-flow acrylic on raw canvas is similar to a tattoo artist working with needle and ink on human skin - no mistakes can be …

We Came From The Sea, L. Alexis St. John

CGU MFA Theses

This paper contains a summary of the thesis exhibition, including an artist statement, exhibition flyer, images of the artwork with descriptions, and images of the gallery. The descriptions of the images are excerpted from the exhibition program, and include artwork titles in a constructed language called Ponder.

Queerform/Ing, Matthew Solon-Lee Weimer

Art Theses and Dissertations

My artwork is situated within and around vessels and the Queer Homoerotic World and explores sexuality as a Demisexual within them. This is accomplished through the two processes of my creation, Minivague and Queerform/ing: balancing sexual tension and explicit expression, while subverting traditional norms and stereotypes with queerness to distance oneself from stereotypical Gay Art. Altering/emphasizing makes the artwork more romantic, lighter, whimsical, softer, and tender than the figure/s and the situations actually are. The process is also emphasizing what one sees or wants to be seen. The Pink Boy becomes a celebration of intimacy of any form. I discuss …

Texas Gothic, Taryn Uribe Turner

Art Theses and Dissertations

The emotional and the ecological combine to create my body of work titled, “Texas Gothic.” My thesis tells the stories of my oil paintings created through personal connections to a variety of landscapes, animals and experiences that share the setting of Texas.

Desire and regret take shape as animals and figures not fully formed or real. Unreliable narratives of the past are entangled with present tensions to create a painting that haunts and stalks.

And yet, there is hope!

Through nostalgia and sweetness and burdens, my paintings confront a shrouded future. The contradictions of time passing are explored in my …

Fragmented Bodies, Lauren Careese Alexander

Art Theses and Dissertations

Through Memory Webs and fragmented ceramic vessels, I express what it feels like to grow up living in a biracial body. I utilize mixed media to emulate a mixed-race experience. My Memory Webs are fashioned by painting on scraps of canvas and attaching them with crocheted wire and ribbon to speak to how my memory has impacted my identity. My fragmented ceramic vessels are cut up and stitched back together to represent disjointedness and un-belonging. All of my work is contextualized through the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and what the Monster may represent for people of color. I also …

With Love, ; An Interdisciplinary And Intersectional Look At Why Creativity Is Essential, Theo Starr Gardner

Whittier Scholars Program

My Whittier Scholars Program self-designed major, Teaching Creativity, is a mixture of Art, Literature, and Education classes. My research and praxis classes have been focused on the ‘how?’s and 'why?’s of creativity, so it felt only right that my project should be a constructivist, generative project. The project I have been working on throughout my time at Whittier, and that has just fully come to fruition on April 11th, 2024, was a solo art gallery/open mic event entitled ‘With Love,’. With Love, was conceptually inspired by the research I’ve conducted on creativity and creative arts education over the past few …

Omnipresence And An Outlier, Cheyenne Monk

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

In this thesis, I explore the possibility of existence outside the confines of labeled identity through the lens of art, drawing inspiration from personal experiences of racial alienation and the desire to transcend societal labels. Through figurations and world-building, I challenge the notion that one's identity must be defined by categories such as race and gender. By removing categorical physicalities and portraying violence as a means to confront bias-motivated aggression, I aim to provoke dialogue on prejudice without further alienation. Through a blend of surrealism, abstraction, and neo-expressionism, I create tense yet playful presentations of bodies to communicate themes of …

Cliffhanger, Micah Mickles

MFA in Visual Art

I am Micah Mickles, a mixed-media visual artist in St. Louis, Missouri. My artwork is deeply rooted in my personal experiences and serves as a memorial and monument to counteract the enduring effects of grief and loss. What sets my work apart is the transformative impact of my everyday encounters, inspired by my 14 years of experience working at Trader Joe's. These encounters have led me to reflect on my profound connections with diverse communities. By delving into the hidden narratives of mundane materials encountered in the workplace, I prompt a reexamination of convenience and supply chain origins. Inspired by …

Virtual Bodies: Probing Fake Flesh, Emily Elhoffer

MFA in Visual Art

This thesis explores the fluid and often elusive concept of the body as mediated through technology and art, questioning the boundaries between the physical and virtual. By investigating the interactions of cultural ideals, technological mediation, and material experimentation, the research delves into how contemporary art practices can challenge and expand our understanding of embodiment.

Central to this exploration is the use of varied mediums such as sculpture, digital imagery, and installation art to create what I term "virtual bodies"—conceptual entities that exist at the intersection of imagination and material reality. These creations often reflect and critique societal norms regarding beauty, …

Teaching Legal Issues In Arts Management To Non-Lawyers, Kristi Arth

Faculty Scholarship Symposium

Teaching Legal Issues in Arts Management to Non-Lawyers

This presentation will provide an overview of the pedagogical framework developed by Prof. Arth for her textbook, "Legal Issues for Arts Organizations: A Practical Guide" (Routledge 2024), which is set for publication on April 29, 2024 and available here: https://www.routledge.com/Legal-Issues-for-Arts-Organizations-A-Practical-Guide/Arth/p/book/9780367771133. The book is designed to make legal concepts approachable by and for non-lawyer audiences. The book’s main objectives include: providing an overview of the American legal system, teaching a systematic process for identifying legal issues, training administrators to read and understand contracts, conveying practical advice for working with professional lawyers, and …

Speak My Language: Art Therapy Restorative Justice Hybrid For Disenfranchised High School Students, Catherine Day

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Abstract

This literature review examines the use of zero tolerance policies and exclusionary practices in schools throughout the United States. The adolescent population is more vulnerable now than ever, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic. An increasing number of students are struggling with behavioral misconduct, mental health issues, and suspension/expulsion from school. The research contained in this review explores how zero tolerance policies have contributed to the current state of our education system, behavioral misconduct in schools, student involvement in the juvenile justice system, alternative methods of discipline such as restorative practices and therapeutic interventions like Art Therapy. The current exclusionary …

Past And Future Winds, Alicia Ehni

Theses and Dissertations

Ehni’s thesis reflects on the role of wind to connect and transform. Looking at science and invisible forces like Earth’s magnetic field, her "Oculus" sculptures evoke old tools for orientation & migration. Birds, insects, plants, roads and sand, appear in a video and an experimental 16mm pinhole film of her bike journey along the Hudson River, NY. “Coordinates”, a magnetic drawing installation, addresses impermanence, attraction to land and fragility. Tracing memories of the Paracas desert in Peru, this thesis follows her interest in alchemy, ecology and the cosmos.

The Fuller The Bucket Is, The Harder It Is To Fly, Jacob Littlejohn

Theses and Dissertations

My abstract paintings are informed by the momentary sublime rooted in the vastness of the natural world. Based on imagined and real landscapes, the work evokes minutia and phenomena that affect our perceptions of reality, and signifies a longing to reconnect with the natural world.

Aguaaaa!!!, Cory Villegas

Theses and Dissertations

“AGUA” is a call for new models of learning and sharing, celebrating the diasporic as a place of global revolution. Salsa, rooted in Latin American and Afro-Caribbean histories, is choreographer Cory Villegas’s expression of cultural legacy. As an Afro-diasporic dance, Salsa carries the wealth and variety of African and Indigenous roots. Villegas contextualizes her thesis event “Las Leyendas: An Afro Cuban Suite,” presenting herself and her troupe Soul Dance Co. as evidence that contradicts the erasure of Latin & Caribbean Culture in US dance history. The paper uses English and Spanish, written, visual, and oral materials with an accompanying webpage.

Feeble Transmitters, Indranil Choudhury

Theses and Dissertations

Feeble Transmitters is a series of electroacoustic sculptures made using ceramics, plexiglass, and home audio components like speakers, transducers, and amplifiers. The sculptures occupy a space between manufactured objects and organic forms. Drawing on the material culture of industrial design in audio, the series explores people’s relationships and rituals with consumer technology. When installed together in temporary installations, the sculptures activate their environment with a spatial soundscape.

Time's Radiant Keepers, Tara Aliya Kesavan

Theses and Dissertations

Time’s Radiant Keepers is a body of work comprising paintings, ceramic sculptures and video. Through these materials, my work emphasizes a tactile, embodied relationship between people and the virtual worlds they inhabit. I build on the idea of contending with the screen as a sculptural surface - one whose texture, form and objecthood we may look at, rather than simply look through. My formal inquiries are anchored in a rich narrative world. Drawing from state sponsored documentary films, feature films, and familial anecdotes from the 1950’s-1970’s in India, my paintings chronicle the emergence of the image of the urban, working …

Container Film, Dena Kopolovich

Theses and Dissertations

Container Film is an experimental nonfiction short film that explores the theme of carrying. Drawing inspiration from a blend of anthropological, religious, and artistic sources, the film is guided by an unknown narrator who contemplates the origins of humanity. Unlike conventional storytelling, the narrator’s uncertainty and inner dialogue punctuate the narrative, challenging a traditional linear structure. Jumping between diverse thoughts, she resists depicting human history with a singular hero or linear trajectory. Visually, the film unfolds through vivid tableaux vivants, dance sequences, and curious object arrangements, illustrating the subtle relationship between human cognition and materiality. Through its nuanced, tactile approach, …

Rgb Root Matriz Color Dance, Danielle E. Gauthier

Theses and Dissertations

RGB Root Matriz Color Dance (Color Dance) is an immersive, interactive experience that combines poetic phrases and color filters to create a womb-like environment. Designed by Danielle Gauthier, this artistic piece uses a webcam to respond to users’ movements in real time, allowing them to confront and express their emotions through metaphor and dance. Color Dance creates a unique platform for self-discovery and empowerment by fostering a connection between the body and discomforting emotions.

Dear Dad,, Kimin Kim

Theses and Dissertations

A father-to-son relationship is often described as cold, distant, and detached. Mine was no different. A son looking for his father's approval for his entire life, realizing the approval has to be given by himself, not from his father.

間, Lele Dai

Theses and Dissertations

LeLe Dai makes contingent participatory public interventions using sensory materials such as sound, flickering light, and water. This paper examines their works through the lens of Chinese character Jian (間), meaning “gap/slit/incision,” to investigate the concept of “in-betweenness.”

The Role Of Acculturation In The Professional Identity Of Art Therapy And Counseling International Students, Ana Marcela Tobar Chavez

Art Therapy Counseling Final Research Projects

In a country of immigrants, the concept of acculturation needs to be familiar to almost any professional in the mental health field and it is a reality for immigrants and international students. As international and immigrant students continue to join the Art Therapy Counseling profession, it is important to understand how acculturation plays a role in the development of their counseling professional identity. Unlike most master’s students in the art therapy counseling profession, international and immigrant students go through unique experiences such as being born and raised in a different country with difference in cultures, languages, and immigration statuses that …

“Everybody Loves A Conjurer:” The Fake Artworks Of Elmyr De Hory (1906-1976) And Their Consequences On The Art World, Caroline Grinstead

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Art institutions such as museums, galleries, and auction houses have for many years been characterized as reliable and trustworthy. The act of art forgery threatens this integrity and causes these institutions to rethink how they acquire artworks. My research focuses on a specific art forger, Elmyr de Hory, who became notorious for being able to reproduce works in the style of notable artists such as Picasso, Matisse, and Modigliani. By successfully selling his forgeries to multiple museums and galleries, only to be discovered later, de Hory forced institutions to reconstruct their approaches in authenticating and acquiring works of art. As …

To Excavate An Absence, Margaret Compton

Graduate Theses

This thesis is an exploration of memory’s fluctuating aspects, utilizing natural materials and casting processes to create a sculptural body of work deeply rooted in materialized metaphor. Examining the relationship between mold and cast, part and whole, and interior and exterior, I utilize casting as a framework to understand the duality of remembering and forgetting. Memories, much like the natural landscape, are ephemeral, fading, and fracturing over time. Both external environments and internal mental landscapes share the common language of erosion, existing as present or absent, remembered or forgotten. Conestee Nature Preserve in Mauldin, South Carolina, serves as my “site” …

Retrieving Images From Tarnished Daguerreotypes Using X-Ray Fluorescence Imaging With An X-Ray Micro Beam With Tunable Energy, Tsun-Kong Sham, Y. Zou Finfrock, Qunfeng Xiao, Renfei Feng, Sarah Bassnett

Visual Arts Publications

We report recent observations using a synchrotron X-ray micro-beam to retrieve images from tarnished 19th century daguerreotypes. We confirm that high quality image can always be retrieved from tarnished plates using Hg Lα XRF as long as the bulk of the image particles and their distribution remains intact. We also report results from using tunable tender X-rays (2 - 7 keV) to conduct imaging in high vacuum at energy above the Ag L-edge and the Hg M-edge, extracting images using Ag Lα and Hg Mα, respectively among others (e.g., S to track corrosion). Images obtained with the surface sensitive total …

Sincerely, Regan Leigh Chrisman-Boman

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Sincerely is a compilation of diaristic narratives depicted through the lens of a distorted reality. This distortion is manifested through the influence of social norms placed on me and my gendered experience of this world. The stories I tell through my work deal with the mind, body and daily life. My images within this body of work are sourced from my written journal, and creating a visual diary. I provide a space of relatability for the viewer to feel seen and not alone through the discussion of personal experiences that are both unique and not unique to myself. The work …

In The Performance Of A Lifetime: Pepper Plinkett, Lily Camille Hollinden

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This narrative depicts a caricature of the human experience through the eyes of my alter- ego character, Pepper Plinkett. Pepper is a symbol of my personal philosophies of what it means to be human, and serves as a protagonist and guide through an infinite, ambiguous natural world. This exhibition is a celebration of the vibrancy, curiosity, and ridiculousness of a lifetime. The uniqueness of humor as a specifically human trait and its use as a tool of communication, particularly in expressing authenticity, is the driving force behind my use of clowns in my work. I take an absurdist approach to …

The Frimpong Case, Vincent Frimpong

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Frimpong Case is the gathering of skills and voices of Africans and African artists. My collaborators from my Ghanaian family and neighbors to my colleagues in the United States have influenced my practice, allowing me to expand the history I have learned from the African musicians who have deeply influenced me to my heritage and the research I am able to expand upon to promote my vision of my culture and legacy. This paper describes the body of work and speaks to the themes of collaboration, migration, assemblage, and installation. The Frimpong Case is the root of my visions …

Overpowered, Benjamin Pearey

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Overpowered is a temporary installation of a tiled living room, modeled after my own living room in a rental apartment in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It takes its name from a kind of sci-fi electro-disco love song released in 2007 by Roísín Murphy, who breaks down romantic attraction into preprogrammed meanings, chemical needs and matching data - and her sense of losing control, succumbing to the overwhelming forces at play. My installation is borne from a similar feeling. It is a continuation of a navigation of daily life under the pressures of external forces exerted by the various systems that underpin society …

My Daily Grounds: A Journal Of Creative Alchemy, Kathleen A. Donovan

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

My Daily Grounds: A Journal of Creative Alchemy is a project intended to renew artistic confidence and prepare a mindset for a writing retreat in Ireland in June 2024 by revisiting childhood memories and exploring the impact of early domestic abuse through a visual journaling process. This endeavor aims to stir up the creative voice and find authenticity in creation by gathering and clarifying personal data visually, following the Creative (CPS) approach to unlock new insights and ideas for writing. The resulting essays will illuminate the unseen effects of trauma and are intended for publication, reflecting a co-creative process between …

Cross-Pollination: Building A Co-Taught Course To Examine Art And Sex Through The Lens Of Botany, Christopher T. Martine, Diamanda A. Zizis, Anna K. Kell

Faculty Journal Articles

Driven by overlapping interests in plants, art, and diversity in sex expression, Anna Kell (Department of Art and Art History) and Chris Martine (Department of Biology) developed a course that integrates the perspectives of a visual artist and a botanist. Art & Sex Through the Lens of Botany seeks to impart the importance of making connections across disciplines and the value of visual literacy across academic lines. The course introduces foundational concepts in each field and encourages students to integrate and explore these different systems of knowledge and their intersections. In addition to developing fluencies related to both general botany …