Art Practice Commons^™

Recuerdos Efímeros, Karewith A. Casas

Theses and Dissertations

The following 12 poems were written in 2023 leading up to my MFA thesis exhibition at Hunter College. Each relate and were inspired by or inspired the visual works in the exhibition. My writing, the music I make, and the visual works I create are all intertwined and feed off of each other. The relationship between my works of art and poetry are not in the tradition of ekphrasis, but are instead extensions of each other. Each mark, material, color, or image are words, sounds, sentences, movements, and pauses. And vice versa as well. Moments on a picture plane or …

Green Meets Blue, Claire Bendiner

Theses and Dissertations

My work deals with process and space. My thesis show consists of abstract paintings made with house paint, vinyl paint, acrylic and oil sticks on canvas. This work models an approach to intuitive painting.

As The Sun Yellows The Green Of The Maple Tree, Adam Fulwiler

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As the Sun Yellows the Green of the Maple Tree is a body of paintings investigating communication, improvisation, play, and painting’s capacity for transformation.

Reflecting on my childhood spent with my brother, Austin, who experiences sensory differences due to autism, I establish a painted space that is both forcibly disjointed and meaningfully connected, invoking the uncertainty and complexity of perception and communication. Through chromatic nuance, physicality, representational ambiguity, and visual tempo, I invite the viewer into the act of slow looking—to encounter each work as a living, breathing, individual entity.

In the studio, I invent rules and aleatoric devices, mimicking …

Hot, Water, Mud: Some Attachments, Dianne Dillingham

CGU MFA Theses

The works in my thesis show came out of an investigation into what it means to really know something. To have such intimate familiarity with a place or object that the shape, smell, and touch becomes unforgettable; the dirt under your nails, smell easily recalled, the carved outline of a bedpost after years of touch. These things are unremarkable in their everydayness; but they can also hold power over time. They can become attachments – motifs that resurface and repeat - that have agency.

Over Certain Undecidedness These Heartstring Intimations, Martha Hemingway

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

over certain undecidedness these heartstring intimations is the culmination of a two-year-long abstracted cycle of textured conversation, internal eye contact, and endless playlist-making. Hemingway’s work is based in process-oriented reflections on habitual behavior, manifestation of sentiment, and sense of self. Her paintings draw inspiration from the ways in which we approach and avoid our internal and external routines – how degrees of our subconscious considerations affect how we extend ourselves to others. Individual auditory preferences of different colliding souls have carved a space for her in a language of empathetic abstraction – attempting to elaborate the curious beauty and pain …

Cover Art, Jordan Horton

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

No abstract provided.

Leslieluis, Caleigh Bubala

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

No abstract provided.

Sunday World, Caleigh Bubala

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

No abstract provided.

Ash Fall, Caleigh Bubala

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

No abstract provided.

Painting Down, Claire Stankus

MFA Statements

No abstract provided.

Trapped In A Health Crisis, Anna Davlin

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

No abstract provided.

Self Portrait Ii, Anna Davlin

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

No abstract provided.

Billie May, Caleigh Bubala

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

No abstract provided.

A Document That Transcends Itself: Between Abstraction And Reality, Seth Lewis

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

In A Document that Transcends Itself: Between Abstraction and Reality, I first present a historical analysis of photography that complicates traditional assumptions of how photographs operate in the world. Rather than functioning as merely an objective record, the photograph takes on a dual status as both a document and an abstraction from reality. The photograph’s ability to selectively decontextualize the origins from which it came from and present itself as something other than what it simply records becomes the core of my artistic practice. This paper will also discuss my conceptual investigations into how we perceive photographs when they …

Secrets, Todd Mccaffrey

CGU MFA Theses

What does it mean to be human and how does art help us in answering this question.

A Shift In Silence, Bailey Idom

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A Shift in Silence is a body of work that emerged because of a key shift in my life. Using the formal components of line, shape, and value, I create a space representing an intimate moment in time. Physically, the medium can be any material, but I process all of this as an expression of line. Each piece shares the commonality of lines and lineage, while the layering embodies the record of my relationships from the past that directly affect the present. The abstraction and unpredictability within my own relationships require openness and vulnerability. This honest dialogue sustains and informs …

Deprivation, Caleigh Bubala

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

No abstract provided.

Cover Art, Kerrigan Clark

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

No abstract provided.

"Some Kinda Alchemy", Chelsea Boxwell

CGU MFA Theses

Multiple pieces and paintings come together in “Some kinda Alchemy” to create one large-scale painting environment that increases your interaction and perception of two- dimensional painting. The sculptural aspect is solely a means to an end, to allow the viewer to see more. I want everyone to see as much as possible- as much of the physical painting as possible and as much of the process and actions as possible. There’s more than just a front and 4 sides to my paintings. This structure also inhabits the space the way it does in order to direct you all the way …

Everything, Everything Seemed Once-Upon-A-Time, Denisse Leung Liu

CGU MFA Theses

The pleasant feeling of being relaxed is what I want the viewer to feel with my work. The art I make is the source of peacefulness and tranquility I treasure, in a way that there is tranquility and absence of noise, yet it whispers quietly to the viewer.

June, Caleigh Bubala

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

No abstract provided.

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.

Sharon Si-Chen Ye Artist Statement, Si-Chen Ye

CGU MFA Theses

Everyone is a separate individual. When individuals become aware that they are alone in this world, they can spend more time getting along with themselves and listening to the voice coming from the depths of their heart. This is the main idea of my works. I want to build a silent world with many creatures to make people feel and know that they are alone without feeling lonely.

Unfettered, Doraelia Ruiz

CGU MFA Theses

My life has been built on high wire tensions between the two vastly different worlds I live between. I live somewhere between illusions of minority success and harsh realities of not having a trust-fund in an elite world. I’m neither here nor there. Painting is my one refuge where I can combine the vastly different worlds I exist in and between. My works are the only semblance of a home that doesn’t vanish .

James Kao Interview, Alice Haller

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio: James Kao was born and raised in Houston, Texas. After studying philosophy and focusing on the texts of Ludwig Wittgenstein at the University of Chicago, he worked as a bakery buyer for a specialty foods retail chain in Southern California. In 2001, James forwent his corporate career and returned to Chicago to take classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he received an MFA from the Painting and Drawing Department. He is Assistant Professor of Art at Aurora University in Aurora, IL, and is co-founder and co-director of 4^th Ward Project Space in …

The Room Without A View, Antione L. Leonard

CGU MFA Theses

My work excites conversation about the creation of aesthetic sensations on the human eye while confronting ideas about the pervasive effects of beauty on the mind, body, and emotional sensitivities. Imagination is integral to my work, both in terms of how I make paintings and how they demand to be seen by viewers. I create individuality with the use of an anti-institutional spray paint next to institutional oil paint. I search my everyday lived experiences to find information that has been taken for granted to enhance my art, through natural behaviors within and outside of my studio environment, physically drawing …

All The Things Left Unsaid, Philip Kim

CGU MFA Theses

I search in my paintings a state of constant glide; meditational state by flooding my senses as my eyes wander from scene to scene onto a daze of perpetual visual stimuli.

They are the frozen amalgamation of its transient state – A crosscut of fog condensing into honey. And the burning shadows of a golden hour vaporizing into electric haze. I try to keep the image in perpetual limbo, confused by their nature, wondering if they will be pickled in the vinegar of the web as digital ghosts or finally disintegrate from being a substance. I want to capture in …

Rope-A-Dope, Gabriel L. Perez

CGU MFA Theses

I create from everyday items, coming from everyday people. I do not think that what I create is too difficult for anyone to understand but I know that although I created it, it eludes me. Plastic containers, disposables, and clothing reach out to eyes that see them differently. I’m not trying to make people see things differently; I’m just trying to make you look. Call it theatrics but with a history of various performance experiences, I am not above pulling a cheap trick to get your attention. Nor will I shun the lingo and logic of decoration since I am …

Indefinability2013c.E., Clayton T. Ehman

CGU MFA Theses

I am a multidisciplinary artist; because I am committed to art that engages a broad array of subjects and ideas. This is reflected in my works which consist of diverse mediums and processes including graphic design, digital imagery, printmaking, painting, sculpting, poetry, song composition, clothing, website design, drawing, video, lighting, installation art, abstract art, Op art, conceptual art, political art, black light art, maximalist art, and various combinations of these.

Kind Of Blue Artist's Statement, Leslie Love Stone

CGU MFA Theses

Leslie Love Stone is a conceptual painter whose work often focuses on the models we build to make sense of the world and ourselves. The beauty of order is exemplified through the geometric abstraction of statistical information; complicated content is eloquently transparent with her use of negative space, repeating patterns, and color.