Art Practice Commons^™

Where Each Step Lands: Reconnecting And Reparenting Through Visual Narrative, Skye Wang

Masters Theses

This research begins with lived experiences of dissociation and a persistent sense of disconnection between body and consciousness. It explores the potential of visual narrative as an embodied practice. Through daily walking and sketching, bodily sensations are translated into visual language through a synesthetic process, forming the foundation for a picture book as the central outcome of this project.

The picture book adopts the perspective of a jumping spider positioned beneath a five-year-old girl’s shoe, creating a shifting, downward-facing viewpoint. The spider functions as a viewing position, while the girl represents the inner child. The narrative is constructed around the …

Rooted Transformations, Ricardo D. Moctezuma

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

In my ventures through art I realized that I underwent an experience that was tailored to my process of release. As I struggled to share my emotions, I became distant and dissociated, I felt detached from others and even from myself. This process was something I visualized in my art from, the Tears, to Self Destruction, to the Release and onto the Garden. I’ve always felt myself in a state of Release, partly healed and partly damaged. All I knew was that the garden represented a new beginning for me, I just never knew what that Garden was. Time passes …

Artwork From Animation (Ani216 Animation Studio), Adrian Bruch

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

A series of pen and ink and photograph collages inspired by my teaching and the scene I created as part of the ANI216 Animation Studio group project. These were made as a response to the invitation to exhibit 3 artworks in a group exhibition. They were all subsequently sold.

Automatonophobia, Adrian Bruch

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

These artworks were created as a direct result of my teaching the ANI216 Animation Studio. In the process of devising ways to incorporate photographic imagery into an animation, I developed a multi-plane system where I could create layers in Adobe Photoshop and combine them with original cartoon characters in After Effects and then animate them.

These artworks for an exhibition at the Garden Gallery (Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney) are imaginary stills inspired by the actual animation. All three were sold.

You Get That From Me, Robyn Duncan

Theses and Dissertations

You Get That From Me is a mixed-media, collage-based film that integrates personal portraits, allegorical maps, and digital collages with spoken narration to craft a stylistic memoir of a pivotal period in my life: the transition from childhood to motherhood.

Ideation And Iteration For Creatives, Sandee M. Chamberlain

KSU Distinguished Course Repository

This course addresses the development of visual literacy including concepting, initial approaches of creating an encompassing aesthetic, creating timelines for production, and exploring the refining aspects of creative production. Students will devise an advanced creative problem and provide a documented account of their creative journey to present as a process journal at the end of the course.

A Perfect Escape: Fantasy, Place And Narrative In Adolescence, Cydney Cherepak

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

This essay explores the realms of special places, the literary genre of fantasy, narrative, and comics. These topics are traversed alongside subjects of adolescence and the creation of stories for middle-grade readers. Framed with personal stories, as well as peaks into my process, I investigate these subjects through the lens of my own life and work, specifically my thesis project, a comic for middle-grade readers titled Beyond the Castle Walls. Beginning with adolescence in association with special places, I consider the work of developmental psychologists David Sobel and Edith Cobb as they pin-point the role of secret forts, nature, …

Material Encounters: Making Memory Beyond The Mind, Ariel Wills

Masters Theses

Can acts of making carry the memories of our embeddedness within the world? This thesis explores how making things can nurture a sense of kinship that cuts across the organic and inorganic, erasing the distinction between living and dead, material and spiritual. Through handwork such as art-making, sewing, knitting, cooking, woodworking, and beyond, the burden of remembering and of archiving is shared across human and non-human bodies, cultivated through practices of making, and through the materials themselves. By recounting the stories of my family’s experience as Jewish immigrants in the United States, I aim to reveal how their domestic practices …

Tori Hong Interview, Eliza Lemus

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio: Tori Hong is a self-taught visual artist exploring homelands and homecomings. In order to create meaning out of the often ambiguous, disruptive, and generative spaces they occupy, Hong creates narrative-driven illustrations, portraits, and zines. The people Hong centers in their work are LGBTQ Asian Americans and people with marginalized identities. Hong is based in Minneapolis, MN.

Cover Art, Jordan Horton

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

No abstract provided.

Leila Abdelrazaq Interview, Quest Sawyer

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio: Leila Abdelrazaq is a Palestinian author/artist, who was born in Chicago. Her work combines art and activism, addressing topics such as diaspora, refugees, history, memory, and borders. In 2015, she graduated from DePaul University with a BFA in Theatre and BA in Arabic Studies. She is best known for her graphic novel Baddawi (April 2015)- a story about her father’s refugee experience. Her website (https://lalaleila.com) also contains comics and zines, illustrations, and prints she’s created based on self- expression and her love of activism. Leila is also the founder of a blog called Bigmouth Press and Comix, …

Tony Moy Interview, Sarah Song

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio:
Tony Moy is a mixed media artist who focuses on watercolor and Gouache living in downtown Chicago. He has published art in books from the X-files, Dungeons and Dragons, Tome I & II, Memory Collectors and among others. In addition, Tony has over 10 years of teaching experience and currently teaches illustration and design at the School of the Art Institute. His inspiration comes from studying traditional and classic watercolorists combined with the modern influences of pop culture comics, anime and fantasy. https://www.tonymoy.art/about-me

Experience Bobo Experience, Sara Smith

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Experience Bobo Experience -by Sara Marie Smith (Artist Statements and Images of work)

Spring 2018-CSUMB Undergraduate Capstone Project/ Visual Public Arts Department

My Senior Capstone is about using inspirational wisdom from acknowledged sources to address the quandaries of our human experiences. I have chosen a cognitive clown, named Bobo, to investigate Henry David Thoreau, Jack Kerouac, and Allen Watts. Bobo, my character, goes on a journey of learning. Bobo is a line drawing, rendered in marker, with a circular head, two dot eyes, three puffs of hair with a clown smile and clown clothing. Experience Bobo Experience speaks to …

Zooairyland- Xinjie Yin Mfa Thesis Show, Xinjie Yin

CGU MFA Theses

During the process of discovering myself in my art world, I have determined to use cuteness as a way to express my worldview, values, and experiences. Cuteness is my own philosophy and language in the interpersonal communication. I intend to make cuteness meaningful to me as well as to the rest of the world. I believe cuteness contains a power to bring people back to their original simplicity regardless of their age, it is the idea of innocence. Cuteness is like a shield for me to protect myself from the tough, scary and crazy reality; and it is a positive …

Ghosts In The Garden: Cultural Critique Through The Lens Of The Absurd, Andrew T. Catanese

Undergraduate Theses—Unrestricted

The primary lens by which I deconstruct my work is the absurd and “lucidity” of the absurd as developed by Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus. Camus’ absurd grows out of the tension between human desire for establishing order with the impossibility of doing so in a universe that continually resists our abstractions. The absurd then becomes a means to understanding the criticisms in my work of consumerism, behavior, and spaces which attempt to control or constrict people. I approach my art as an “other” or “outsider” from the system of Protestant moral dichotomy in which I grew up. …

Comics And Illustration From The Written; The Conversion Of A Story From Prose To Graphic Depiction., Kayla A. White Ms.

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This is a thesis that details the process of writing a short 30 page novel, and then converting the subsequent story into a graphic format via illustrations and into a comic book layout. The story itself deals in reworking our learned assumptions of good and evil, specifically in the supernatural and human possibility for both. The comic book format is an exploration of my reader’s different responses to the written and the graphic.

Shital Patel Interview, Alark Patel

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio: Attempting, day and night, to live with a dash of color, creativity, and courage. Life is beautiful :)

Art, for me, is an exploration of my true self…with each work I come closer and closer to my own identity. It is a means through which I lose myself in a world of great wonder and amazement, only to emerge a few hours later rejuvenated, empowered, and slightly wiser than I was when I started.

My work attempts to merge the thoughts and ideals of my Indian culture with my life experiences as an American. I have been fortunate …

Ed Lai Interview About Grace Lai, Thomas Matt

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio: Grace Lai painted downtown Chicago in concrete and steel bloom, for two decades producing vibrant montages of skyline-shaping buildings as they climbed. An "on-site" artist who didn't seriously take up painting until nearly 60 because of a promise made to her deceased husband, Mrs. Lai donned a hard hat and was unafraid to board construction elevators for rides high into the sky to complete her work. In winter she'd wrap herself in plastic garbage bags and substitute rubbing alcohol for water in her paints, so they wouldn't freeze.

Artist Bio taken from the Chicago Tribune (http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-03-17/news/ct-met-0318-lai-obit-20100317_1_paintings-materials-train-stations)

To learn …

Baa Baa Black Sheep, Olan Quattro

SPECS journal of art and culture

No abstract provided.

Classical Bust, Angela M. Schmidt

The Mercury

No abstract provided.

Visual Branding For "The Middle Of Everywhere" Senior Graphic Design Show, Mai-Chi Vu

Art and Design

In this project, a series of promotional items was designed for an end of year senior graphic design show called “The Middle of Everywhere.” This series includes a set of four posters, a mailer, and a postcard. In order to accomplish this, research was conducted to begin planning the event, set a date and location, and to gauge the interest of the senior class. The solution chosen to implement the posters was to create a whimsical illustration of a busy town celebrating the work and talent of the graduating seniors; this personal approach attempted to include each individual in the …

Visually Sound: An Exploration Of Design + Music, Justin Rodriguez

Art and Design

Visually Sound: An Exploration of Design + Music, is a book comprised of a series of works exploring the relationship of design and music. There are four compositions which are inspired by four different songs: “Wake Up” by Arcade Fire, “Chicago Zoo” by The Cool Kids, “Reptilia” by The Strokes, and “Sleepyhead” by Passion Pit. Within the book are the lyrics to each song, and my thoughts on my ideas behind each of the four designs.

This report contains my research, process, results and personal discoveries. My documentation includes visual research in the form of digital mood boards, inspirational work …

Dylan In A Gesture, Chelsea R. Kasten

The Mercury

No abstract provided.

War And "Equality", Brian P. Menna

The Mercury

No abstract provided.

Self-Portrait, Thomas C. Hanvey

The Mercury

No abstract provided.

Multiple Mac Perspectives, Victoria L. West

The Mercury

No abstract provided.

Jasmine, Makenzie M. Seiple

The Mercury

No abstract provided.

Face 2, Geoffrey D. Gaenslen

The Mercury

No abstract provided.

Lemons, Erica J. Wiles

The Mercury

No abstract provided.

Skeleton, Luis Alberto Ruiz Quintero

The Mercury

No abstract provided.