Art Practice Commons^™

Rhythms Of Light, Jessica R. Csanky

CGU MFA Theses

My works are visual expressions of a true love for movement, rhythm, and saturated color. In making art, I present lived experiences that are rendered abstract. These formal representations originate from an energetic space or sensory association and express a connection to places I have been, whether physically or emotionally.

Integral to my practice is the uninhibited exploration of materials and tools. I am committed to deepening my understanding of what paint can do when combined with drawing and installation techniques.

My compositions address architecture, landscape, memory, as well as psychological and physical spaces that we move through during our …

Bitter Fruit, Ronald J. Green

Theses and Dissertations

Pain is a phenomenon like fear, belief, and love -- among the forces that determine the course of our lives long before we are born. These conditions generate the layers of the human soul, marrying one life with others past, present and future.

There is an unconscious consensus on the linearity of time. Our lives, memories, dreams and reflections constantly present a challenge to this general agreement. Life, like time, is a series of interlocking awarenesses. Paths intersect, the actions of individuals deposit change into an internal pool of collective experience. Freud once believed that the past is not fixed …

The Potency Of Emptiness, Kennedy L. Bailey

Theses and Dissertations

I investigate language and neurology by integrating intangible personal experiences with painted manifestations of rupture within structures. I utilize a hyperbolic translation of white and black to investigate the dismantling of a structure as an explicit quotation of space, matter, existence, and mind.

Indigenous Woman., Annabelle R. Broeffle

Senior Art Portfolios

Abstract three-piece series created by Annabelle Broeffle in the fall of 2019. It includes sculpture and installation art. The series is focused on indigenous social issues.

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.

To See Again: Vision And Revelation In American Poetics, Emily C. Raabe

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

With this project, I am arguing for a particularly American visual poetics that dwells in the state of suspension implied by attention, quivering between wonder and contemplation, immobility and unfixity as it seeks to reveal, as Maurice Merleau-Ponty writes in his 1945 The Phenomenology of Perception, the world which is “always ‘already there’ before reflection begins — as an inalienable presence.”^[1] Grounded in visual theory, the project pairs poets and artists, searching not for similitude, but rather examining resemblance, difference, and most important, relation. Susan Howe, one of my guides for this project, writes that, “immense perspectives …

Kathy Liao, Lei Chen

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Biography: Kathy Liao currently resides in Kansas City, MO, and teaches at Missouri Western State University as the Director of the Painting and Printmaking Studio Art Program. Drawing inspirations from her diverse cultural background and personal history, Kathy Liao mixed media work is about the intimate yet universal concept of relationships. Liao received her MFA in Painting from Boston University and BFA in Painting and Drawing from University of Washington, Seattle. Liao is a recipient of various awards including the StudiosINC Studio Residency Program, Charlotte Street Foundation Studio Residency, Elizabeth Greenshield Foundation Grant, Artist Grants from Anderson Ranch Arts …

Heather C. Lou Interview, Katie O’Reilly

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio: heather c. lou, m.ed. (she/her/hers) is an angry gemini earth dragon, multiracial, asian, queer, cisgender, disabled, survivor/surviving, depressed, and anxious womxn of color artist based in st. paul, minnesota. her mixed media pieces include watercolor, acrylic, gold paint pen, oil pastel, radical love, & hope. each piece comments on the intersections of her racial, gender, ability, & sexual identities, as they continue to shift and develop in complexity each day. her art is a form of healing, transformation, and liberation, rooted in womxnism and gender equity through a racialized borderland lens. heather works in education as an administrator. …

All The Small Things, Talia E. Levitt

Theses and Dissertations

My paintings engage with the history of the still life as a marginalized and antiacademic genre. Rather than fool viewers into believing that there are real objects in front of them, as is the historical intention of trompe l’oeil, I use realistic rendering to emphasize the painting and painter.

Driving In Circles With Monsters, Melanie Klimjack

MFA Statements

Abstract

Using the novel Frankenstein as a visual mentor and metaphor, I explore methods of creating both paintings and video works through a piecemeal procedure like that of Dr. Frankenstein's monster. In this paper, I discuss the limitations and successes of my artistic practice and how the aesthetics of failure, montage, and the art historical movements of Post-minimalism and Casualism informed my work during my course of study. I seek to outline my journey from my early paintings that relied on image-making and my subsequent transformation to abstract sculptural paintings to achieve an aesthetic that is in line with that …

Quiet Moments, Deitra Charles

CGU MFA Theses

I am a figurative artist who focuses on ordinary people and everyday objects. I paint moments. A moment of peace, a moment of tranquility, a moment of contemplation. It is my hope that my paintings will incite a feeling of warmth, presenting the possibility of thoughts that take you away from the stresses of day-to-day life – that they give you the opportunity to experience life differently, stirring within you some sense of peace.

It is my hope that my paintings will incite a feeling of warmth, presenting the possibility of thoughts that take you away from the stresses of …

Monsters And Mayhem And Laughter, Staver Klitgaard

Theses and Dissertations

Being an image-maker was always going to be a part of my life. As a child, I had a speech impediment and in order to communicate with my parents, I would use drawings I created to let them know what I was feeling or trying to say. Image making saved me again when I grew older; I was not a star student. But, when I was in art class, I felt like I suddenly could breathe. The minute I realized there was something I could master and have a handle on—a place of creating, learning the history of other artists—I …

The Dream Of Being Totally Open, Frederick Greis

Theses and Dissertations

This essay details four major themes in the paintings of Frederick Greis: spiritual experience, nature, pleasure, and humor. These themes are described within the context of the artist's main goal, which is to create an experience of profound unburdening.

Enmesh: The Art Of Trauma And Recovery, Joanna Pottle

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Liminal Space is an artistic installation within the ongoing, interdisciplinary creative/research project "Enmesh: The Art of Trauma and Recovery.” Utilizing a combination of research methods, creative processes, and cultural inspirations, this project asks the following questions: how can the artistic process (this project serving as a preliminary case study) parallel various modes of recovery and healing? How can this objective be visually communicated through a mixed media approach of drawing, painting, and printmaking and how can this approach be an effective tool of communication? What can we conclude from both modes of work (solitarily or collectively)? How do they accomplish …

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 …

Liable To Change, Jody Travis Thompson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Liable to Change is a body of paintings in which I explore diverse approaches to the representation of visual space. Depictions of space and movement change throughout the pictures by combining various artistic conventions, such as trompe l’oeil realism and non-objective, geometric abstraction. Oil paint, resin, beeswax, and other materials create built-up surfaces which contain the history of their making. Interaction between various finishes and light on these surfaces changes based on the viewers' proximity to the painting. Images of monkey bars, lattice, golden ratio and flower of life patterns provide a structure through which line, form, and space are …

Into The Glitch, Natalie Birinyi

Theses and Dissertations

My work uses Google Earth to generate imagery which is then faithfully observed and reproduced in oil paint. I sneak inside skyscrapers, paragons of capitalistic power, and trick Google Earth into showing me the unrendered innards. Buildings break down into glorious shards of abstract shapes and lines that gesture toward structure, turning a tower into a portal. In this paper I discuss surveillance, the cultural meaning of skyscrapers, cyborgs, drone perspective, painting from observation, science fiction, and the future.

Painting Down, Claire Stankus

MFA Statements

No abstract provided.

Painting Intimacy: Art-Based Research Of Intimacy, Michal Lev

Expressive Therapies Dissertations

This art-based research explores whether — and, if so, how — the process of painting, together with witnessing and reflection on the process and imagery, further an understanding of intimacy. The research also examines the conditions that favor intimacy, the obstacles to intimacy, and the particular features of artistic media, processes and reflection, through the editing of video footage, that can further the intimate experience. The participants in the study were five adults (including the researcher) between the ages of thirty and eighty who were familiar with the creation of visual art. Among them were three women and two men …

Constraint And Control, Patricia Ayres

Theses and Dissertations

I have long considered themes of the body. Drawing on my knowledge as a fashion designer, I bring materials and hardware from the fashion industry into my artwork transforming and rendering them non-functional. My sculptures relate to stories of isolation, separation, and confinement. The following pages will analyze how the United States penal system controls, constrains and restricts the body through physical and psychological wounds. Furthermore, they will examine how the Catholic Church controls people’s minds and behavior through a ritualistic belief system.

My Painting, Brian Byun

Theses and Dissertations

When the painting is done, it begins to ask me “Who are you?” and “What am I?” This ongoing conversation has fascinated me in making these paintings over the last several months and I’m hoping the viewer will have a similar experience.

Archaeology Of Social Patterning, Chase Bray

Theses and Dissertations

The episteme that created the grid as a structure for logic has been usurped. We compose meaning from an adulterated grid, or pattern. I process meaning through the abuse of acrid patterns and the grid, the reduction of imagery to silhouettes and by referencing both cultural and classical mythology.

What Comes After Longing, Richard Zachary Williams

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

What Comes After Longing is a collection of artifacts from my research exploring the desires and haunting motivations of the human experience. Is all life longing for something, some place, somebody, some time? That is the question I pose.

What is the purpose of longing? Is it meaningless to long for something if you’re longing for something that’s not real? We filter our experience of the world through this longing. Longing is the filter through which we survive, and my research and work explores whether we can get past this, or whether all life is a series of these longings. …

Contour Line Self Portrait, Thomas A. Thayer Mr

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Art B0051 Studio Critique, Thomas A. Thayer Mr

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Mitsu Salmon Interview, David Yonamine

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio:
Mitsu Salmon creates original performance and visual works, which fuse multiple disciplines. She was born in the melting pot of Los Angeles to a Japanese mother and American father. Her creation in different mediums, the translation of one medium to another, is connected to the translation of differing cultures and languages.

Salmon received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2014. In 2005 she graduated from NYU where she majored in Experimental Theater, studying theater and visual arts. She has lived in India, England, Germany, Amsterdam, Japan, and Bali.

She has performed solo …

Soheila Azadi Interview, Jillian Bridgeman

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio: Soheila Azadi is an interdisciplinary visual artist and lecturer based in Chicago and Iran. Born in the capital of Islamic cities, Esfahan, Azadi absorbed story-telling skills through Persian miniature drawings since she was nine. Azadi’s inspirations come from her experiences of being a woman while living under Theocracy. Now residing in the U.S. Azadi is dedicated to transnational feminism with a passionate devotion to the ways in which race, religion, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity intersect. Azadi uses performance art and performative installations as methods to both materialize and narrate stories about women’s everyday struggle in the world. Her …

Double Splinters, Theresa M. Daddezio

Theses and Dissertations

Awareness of matters outside oneself can be heightened by a repetitive task, one that requires a meditative focus on the rudimentary of movement. The construction of a line is a projection from a fixed point that creates a multiplicity of lines, synapses, and connective fabric in the mind that project outward to any possible or arbitrary point. When assembling our reality, our eyes operate as the mediators of such points, drawing in visual clues to the world around us. Sight is composed from the movement of light particles alongside of individual and collective memories that construct what is.

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 …