Fine Arts Commons^™

Infrastructure, Scott S. Foxx

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The paintings in this series depict sensations and forms drawn from a collaged, painted surface, referencing examples of painting from the Early Renaissance and the pure Formalism of the mid 20^th century. Collage materials lend both conceptual and physical directions to the compositions, in that it is symbolic of the multi layered experience of modern people in a technological society. Imitating painting’s gestural, linear energy in an illusory manner, the paper and paint layers invert expected hierarchies of space. I am analyzing the condition of the painter, the ideas of painting as an activity and product, with myself at …

Fragmented, Max Rebel

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This thesis, Fragmented, outlines Rebel’s explorations with materials and techniques that led to the creation of his current work that was presented in his MFA Exhibition. Fragmented focuses on elements of abandoned and ignored structures found in both urban and rural communities. Rebel is interested in the visual characteristics directly related to manufactured landscapes that have been reshaped by neglect, specifically, surfaces that appear old and weathered. The assemblages he makes in reference to these deserted sites do not comment on specific architectural locations. Instead, they are meant to emphasize common traits found at multiple sites. By working with …

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.

Art And Symbolism: The Technique Of Applying Hidden Meaning And Communicating Specific Ideas Through Art, Andrea C. Macbean

Senior Honors Theses

Symbolism is an artistic style frequently used in the arts. Through the course of art history, it was its own artistic movement as well. The incorporation of specific symbols, shapes, colors, or identifiable images communicates to the viewer an intended message or statement. Frequently, symbolism appears to be hidden or initially unperceived by the intended audience. In some works, symbolism is so abstract that it needs explanation or clarification to be understood completely by the viewer. This thesis will analyze a few techniques of symbolism that can be incorporated in a work of art to communicate truth, entice thought, point …

Ordinary Effort, John Mcmahon

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The thesis is primarily concerned with how the search for knowledge is driven by a quest for certainty, resulting in a compulsion to fix knowledge in explicit rules and procedures. Rather than producing a satisfactory sense of stability, this produces comedy and tragedy as human endeavors play out against a backdrop of arbitrary structure.

Three videos explore this problem through the lens of professional sport, where the quest for certainty is evaluated against the application of rules, against rules governing the action of the body, and against the attempt to circumvent the rules. Theoretical background is provided by examining the …

Andrew Bae Interview, Richard Park

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: While Andrew Bae is situated in Chicago, he has clients from all over the globe. Born and raised in Seoul, South Korea, Andrew Bae picked up on the business of galleries after attending school and studying chemistry and worked as a chemist for several years. Although his gallery is in one of the more desirable locations of River North, he doesn't seem to carry that many artists. He prefers a limited selection of artists (around 10) as he feels there is more personal connection with his artists especially as a gallery owner. Though the business is changing, Andrew Bae …

Kompha Seth Interview About The Cambodian Association Of Illinois, Matthew Mrozinski

Asian American Art Oral History Project

About the Organization:

“Founded in 1976, the Cambodian Association of Illinois (CAI) serves some 5,000 Cambodians in Illinois via senior health intervention; child and youth services; family health, citizenship and employment. CAI enables refugees and immigrants from Cambodia residing in Illinois, especially those in metropolitan Chicago, to become self-sufficient, productive participants in American society while preserving and enhancing their cultural heritage and community.”

About the co-Founder:

“Kompha Seth, co-Founder and Executive Director of CAI since 1981. He was a Buddhist monk in Cambodia for 23 years before emigrating to the U.S. in 1975. He has received numerous national, state and …

Forming A New Art In The Pacific Northwest: Studio Glass In The Puget Sound Region, 1970-2003, Marianne Ryder

Dissertations and Theses

The studio glass movement first arose in the United States in the early 1950s, and was characterized by practitioners who wanted to divorce glass from its industrial associations and promote it as a fine arts medium. This movement began in a few cities in the eastern part of the country, and in Los Angeles, but gradually emerged as an art form strongly associated with the city of Seattle and the Puget Sound region. This research studies the emergence and growth of the studio glass movement in the Puget Sound region from 1970 to 2003. It examines how glass artists and …

Paper - A Reserve Or Backgound?, Brian Fay

Conference Papers

Paper: A Reserve or a Background?

“Using examples from contemporary practice and my own research, this presentation will discuss two models for the role of paper in drawing: as background and as reserve. It will focus on Walter Benjamin's definition for the graphic lines almost metaphysical relationship to the background, and compare it with Norman Bryson's model of the paper as a reserve, for him an 'area without qualities'.”

Falling Apart While Awake, Crystal Erlendson

CGU MFA Theses

Crystal Erlendson conceals surfaces with irreverent, ornamental gestures to reveal a daft logic in space.

Find additional websites of the artist's work here and here.

Ritual Process, Kevin A. Baer

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

My art is a means for investigating the passage of time, the decay of physical things, and the truth of mortality. I explore these concepts through process-oriented sculptures that emphasize ritual and material. The process is communicated with the creation of relics, often existing as drawings or the remains of degenerated sculptures. These relics bear witness to the process. I focus on themes of temporal change and death because they remain central to our metaphysical and physical existence. I see a diminished reverence for the power of death in our culture, and through my work I aim to pay homage …

Pao Hoau Her Interview, Bentley "Libby" Christenson

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio: Pao Houa Her is a visual artist base in Minnesota. She studied at Minneapolis College of Art and Design and at Yale University School of Art. She can be reached at [email protected]. Bio from- http://phphoto.nfshost.com/?page_id=33

Pao Houa Her was born in Laos. In 1986 after the Vietnam War ended, Pao and her family moved to Thailand and a year later moved to Minnesota. Pao is the oldest of seven and currently resides in Minneapolis, MN. She has received a B.F.A. in photography at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and was the first Hmong individual …

Dan S. Wang Interview, Katy Canzone

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio:

Dan S. Wang is a writer, artist, organizer, and printer who was born in the American Midwest in 1968 to immigrant parents. Dan’s constant concerns are the relationships between art + politics, critical reflection + social action, place + history. His research includes inquiries into the postindustrial cultural politics of the Midwest, letterpress printing as an archaeology of obsolescence, race and difference in the theater of crisis capitalism, and the cultural landscape of postsocialist China.

As a print media artist he primarily uses letterpress printing and hand set typography but avails himself of other media as words and …

Joanne Aono Interview, Charlie Lacke

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: Joanne Aono is a Japanese American Sansei artist, born in Chicago. She received a BFA from Drake University with post graduate classes through the SAIC.

Solo and two person exhibitions of her paintings and drawings include South Shore Arts, Images Gallery, Eyeporium Gallery, Dayton Street, and 303 Erie Artspace, with an upcoming solo show at the Lee Dulgar Gallery. Joanne has shown in numerous group exhibitions including Julius Caesar, Contemporary Art Workshop, Governor’s State University, Woman Made Gallery, Beverly Art Center, Northern Illinois University, and Art Chicago International. She has received City of Chicago Arts grants in addition to …

Hamza Salim Interview, Julian Coleman

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: Hamza J. Salim is a Palestinian artist, architect, and community based activist from Chicago, Illinois. He earned his masters in Architecture from the University of Illinois at Chicago and his work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in New York, Chicago, Los Angels, London and Dubai. He is currently serving as the Project Director of the 12th Chicago Palestine Film Festival and is the Immigrant Community Coordinator at a non-for-profit social service agency, Arab American Family Services.

Bio from facebook.com/HamzaJSalimStudio/info

See also: http://www.hamzajsalim.com/

Imagining The Unknown, Angelina Kidd

MFA in Photography and Integrated Media Theses

It is true that there is no scientific proof of life after life or of the human soul. However, I believe there is a soul and that it is energy manifested as light. Our lifetime is a mere pulse when measured against the evolution of earth. We are connected to the cosmos through the very calcium in our bones and the iron in our blood, which originated from stars that died billions of years ago. My belief is that the earthly body is separate from the soul and that our light energy returns to the cosmos. Energy will not cease …

Roger Shimomura Interview, John Beale

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio: (The following biography was taken from Roger Shimomura’s Press Release Biography on his website http://www.rshim.com/) Roger Shimomura’s paintings, prints, and theatre pieces address sociopolitical issues of ethnicity. He was born in Seattle, Washington and spent two early years of his childhood in Minidoka (Idaho), one of 10 concentration camps for Japanese Americans during WWII.

Shimomura received a B.A. degree from the University of Washington, Seattle, and an M.F.A. from Syracuse University, New York. He has had over 130 solo exhibitions of paintings and prints, as well as presented his experimental theater pieces at such venues as the …

Wing Young Huie Interview, Anna Hendrickson

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio: Photographer Wing Young Huie earned a B.A. in journalism from the University of Minnesota in 1979. Huie became a full time professional photographer in 1989 and is most well known for his photographs documenting people in a culturally diverse and changing urban landscape. Several of his projects focus on Minneapolis and St. Paul neighborhoods. Huie’s photographs have been exhibited nationally and internationally in St. Paul, Minneapolis, Chicago, Westport, New York City, West Palm Beach, Budapest, and Rotterdam. Four books based on Huie’s photography projects have been published and are listed in the Selected Works. – Bio from …

Path - Loss, Gregory S. Cook

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

The term “path loss” could be considered somewhat idiomatic – it refers at once to a very specific technical definition and an easily relatable conceptualization, but perhaps its most immediate read is one of defeat, literally “a path, lost.” I find this beautifully problematic. In its original end as a term in radio-engineering, it’s used to describe the attenuation of a signal through physical space on its way to a receiver – that is, “path loss” describes some kind of thin-ness of intensity, the parts of something snagged along the way; parts caught in bedrock, lost in soil, or tangled …

Bearing Likeness, Christine M. Salama

CGU MFA Theses

The world is saturated with images and things. I have chosen to put more images and things into the world. In doing so, I complicate and further saturate these connections, but I also find clarity and answers through the mark, the gesture, the image, and material. I make marks with materials that are closely related to the meanings of the things I depict. The images and objects I make are ones that I know and understand because they are close to me, but the process of making leaves room for inquiry and unfamiliarity with these same objects.

I am guided …

Geographies Of Story, Emma Nishimura

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

Family stories are told and retold, evolving over time with new details and other layers. One story merges with the next, while photographic images, oral and written accounts dissolve into the fabric of memory, building the family narrative. Both individual and collective, these histories continue to grow and transform as a new language is created, one that is visual, written, spoken and unspoken. As the complexities develop, the impact of these stories on our lives and the need to make sense of them in relation to our own identities increases. Yet, as I wade through my own family’s tales, the …

Constructions, Sean Ryan Larson

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

I have always been drawn to investigating the nature of ambiguous objects; objects whose role is unclear; objects that fall between distinct categories, and that exist in what appears to be transitional stages. The pieces I make provoke the imagination by building in experimental self-defined systems that refer to contemporary architecture, as well as comment on the ceramic and non-ceramic process. My pieces vary in form and intention just as the skyline carries changes in form and order. I want to make experimental objects that develop in front of me from the ground up, without a pre-planned result. Using fundamental …

Bringing Back Color, Bringing Back Emotion: Exploring Phenomenological Empathy In The Reclamation Of The Female Nude In Painting, Sophia R. Forman

Scripps Senior Theses

At the nexus of the seemingly disparate art-theoretical topics of color and the female nude is a critical consideration of phenomenology in both one of its most basic senses—as the first-person experience of perceived phenomena—and as a larger philosophical position which, through its abstraction of perception to subject-object relationships, implicates the painted figure. Specifically, this paper conflates the phenomenology of color with the transcendental phenomenology of Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty in investigating empathy. Structured as a dialectic, it establishes the most prominent views of both color and the female nude—the nude as a symbolic figure, color as perceptual experience—before …

Fabricated Perceptions, Monique E. Perry

All Student Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a personal exploration through playful and childlike imagery. I draw on historical and contemporary artistic influences to the creation of my concepts. Themes of visual metaphor, trompe l’oeil, diorama, and contrasting spatial relationships of objects are explored. Each piece carries its own interpretation that is kept open ended for the viewer. My goal for this art series is to amuse, provoke imagination, and encourage individual interpretation.

The River In A Landscape Of Creative Practice: Creative River Journeys., Kylie J Stevenson

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

In my current PhD study, Creative River Journeys, I use the metaphor of the river as a data capture tool when interviewing artist-researchers about their experiences of conducting creative practice within a university context. My use of the river functions as a metaphor for the creative process. I have adapted the River Journey tool from its previous use as a map of teacher identity and professional development, and in a project about children’s musical experience. This PhD project follows a long tradition of using the river as a metaphor. For example, the river has been used in a narrative therapy …

Art Meets Science! Get Over It . . ., Stephen Nowlin

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

The news headline, when such projects garner attention, usually goes like this – Art Meets Science! Or perhaps Art Merges with Science! or maybe they combine, or art collides with science, or they fuse, join, bond, or unite. And ‘art’ in the phrase usually precedes ‘science’, perhaps because their integration is more typically initiated from the art side of the equation. But whatever the order of the two terms, and whatever verb is used to link them, the tenor of the declaration is typically the same – this is a story worth reporting on, it announces, because …

40/40/40 Exhibition Of Contemporary Art Celebrating Ireland’S 40 Years In The European Union, Amy M. Walsh

Exhibition Catalogues

For E word 40/40/40 is an exhibition of contemporary art works from the Irish State Art Collection organised by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Office of Public Works (OPW) of Ireland. These works have each been created by 40 artists under the age of forty, who are Irish or have chosen to base themselves in Ireland. It is in celebration of the 40th Anniversary of Ireland as a Member State of the EU. The works reflect the current art practice of these artists and cross a variety of media – photography, drawing, sculpture and painting. The …

Brian Fay Interview For Peel Magazine, Brian Fay

Other resources

This interview is from a series of artist conversations around the use of and relationships to the materials they employ in their practice. Other interviewees include Alexandra Hughes, Nadia Scola, Rachel Sharp, James Watts and Zara Worth.

Projection (Baton Charge 1913), Ronan Mccrea

Exhibitions

Projection (Baton Charge 1913) is based an single photograph made by Joseph Cashman (1881 – 1969) during the labour dispute known as the Dublin Lockout in 1913. Taken from a elevated point of view, Cashman’s image depicts members of the Dublin Metropolitan Police baton charge a large crowd attending a protest meeting to be addressed by trade union leader Jim Larkin on O’Connell Street on 31 August 1913. Larkin was arrested and two people were killed during the riots that followed. This photograph (along with second photograph by Cashman of Larkin addressing a crown with outstretched arms) dominates the iconography …

Augmented Resistance: The Possibilities For Ar And Data Driven Art, Conor Mcgarrigle

Articles

This article discusses the possibilities for Augmented Reality (AR) as a driver of data based art. The combination of AR and Open Data (in the broadest post-Wikileaks sense) is seen to provide a powerful tool-set for the artist/activist to augment specific sites with a critical, context-specific data layer. Such situated interventions offer powerful new methods for the political activation of sites which enhance and strengthen traditional non- virtual approaches and should be thought of as complementary to, rather than replacing, physical intervention.

I offer as a case study this author’s “NAMAland” project, a mobile artwork which uses Open Data and …