Fine Arts Commons^™

Public Art And Military Technology At The Mexico-U.S. Border: Disrupting Boundaries On Battlegrounds, Anna Luise Kaunert

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how contemporary artists Rubén Ortiz Torres, Chico MacMurtrie, rafa esparza, and Cassils transformed military technologies into powerful artworks that interrogate the Mexico-U.S. border as a battlefield. Together, their works illuminate militarization and surveillance technologies at the border and the violent enforcement of U.S. immigration policy.

Containment, Quin Mittelstead

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores “containment" (the act of keeping something within limits) as both oppressive control and a mode of self-regulation, grounded in the author’s experience with epilepsy. Paintings deploy grayscale grounds, restrained palettes, and contrasting rapid/slow gestures; emergent color, texture, and altered substrates map psychological states, bodily impulses, and reactive processes. Research into witchcraft, remedial items, and eugenics (notably Buck v. Bell) informs works that link historical censorship and institutional violence to contemporary stigma. Sculptural installations (nets, jute, flawed Faraday-like enclosures) and cannibalized studio materials probe systems that restrain thought, media, and bodies. By introducing unpredictable variables with found supports, …

Weathered, Haylee A. Dyess

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Weathered focuses on themes of change, accumulation, time, and acceptance. Each artwork holds layers of information and experiences that form a unique narrative for all its viewers. The construction of each piece is a symbol of the physical ability it takes to create each painting. After my mobility was hindered due to my medical conditions, a new appreciation for physical health and the world I live in was gained. Striving to pack this sense of appreciation into my work, my method became a way for me to cope with my illness and to enjoy being creative, freely.

My art is …

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 …

Heirlooms Of Virtu, Santos Nunez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Heirlooms of Virtu explores familial history as a mode of self-study. By examining childhood, the more possible it can be to navigate the contemporary. Research into the self becomes the bridge between two states of being, allowing for a better understanding and a more purposeful approach to the future.

As an artist working primarily in photography and video, I am recontextualizing key nostalgic concepts with technology through interactive sculptures and video installations. My research alludes to classic toys and technologies specific to my childhood in an effort to find and understand the self. Nostalgia as an idea not only exists …

Between Chronicle And Legend: A Two-Scene Environment And Visual Effects Examination Of Physical Accuracy And Emotional Exaggeration On The Honey Creek Bridge Collapse, Alison R. Gaddy

All Theses

This thesis explores how truth and dramatization intersect in digital storytelling by comparing realistic and stylized simulations of the Honey Creek bridge collapse within the context of the Kate Shelley animated short. At the core of storytelling lies a tension between factual accuracy and dramatic stylization. We investigate that tension by examining how narrative truth is conveyed, distorted, or enhanced through visual dramatization by focusing on the psychology of audience perception and the motivations behind creative embellishment. The practical contribution of this research is the development of two distinct digital scene setups depicting the same Honey Creek bridge collapse event. …

Weaving Ideology: Textiles In Florentine And Venetian Painting Of The Cinquecento, Ruben Verità

Art and Art History Honors Projects

Renaissance art historical scholarship has largely ignored the political and cultural significance woven into the representation of textiles, as well as their communicative potential in paintings. In this study, I examine how textiles in their various forms carry the potential to go beyond their normative categorization as decoration. Through a comparative analysis of the paintings produced in two politically distinct polities—Florence and Venice—during the sixteenth century, I integrate Louis Althusser’s theory of ideology and Michael Baxandall’s period eye to elucidate how painted fabric was not the representation of a passive decorative ornament. Rather, it was an active and legible proxy …

Meikyu, Diana D. Dyer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations (2019 - present)

This thesis explores the relationship between digital and physical practices through the integration of traditional glassworking techniques and digital media. The project combines glass fusing and glass blowing with woodworking, screen printing, vinyl cutting, animation, and augmented reality (AR) technologies to create dialogue between physical and digital forms. This thesis documents the full creative process, beginning with conceptual sketches and progressing through the fabrication and assembly of glass components into finished sculptural pieces. Digital technologies are then incorporated to augment and extend the physical artwork. Three-dimensional (3D) assets were created using Maya, a 3D modeling software, and implemented within Snapchat's …

Desert Ghost, Jessica Downs

All Theses

This thesis explores the relationship between landscape, memory, and the body through handmade paper installations inspired by the deserts of southwestern Utah. Drawing from personal experience of place and the loss of a childhood home, the work considers how environments are internalized and persist as shifting, sensory impressions rather than fixed geographies. The desert becomes a generative site for examining presence, transformation, and the passage of time, both geologic and personal.

I use handmade paper and installation to translate my experience of place into physical form. Paper serves as both material and metaphor; its fibers, textures, and muted tones emulate …

Home: Transforming A Public Arts Grant Into A Community Project, Scarlett G. Baily

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

Home is a 2,535 ft² site-specific mural in San Diego’s Liberty Station that reconnects the site’s military history with Kumeyaay Indigenous heritage and maritime culture. Through depictions of native flora and fauna, the work foregrounds overlooked origin stories and ecological knowledge of Point Loma. Developed through deep community collaboration, including Kumeyaay advisors and over 100 local participants, the mural fosters shared authorship and cultural continuity. It invites viewers to engage with alternative histories while supporting language revitalization and environmental awareness.

Repatriasi Lukisan Pita Maha Dan Penguatan Historiografi Seni Rupa Modern Bali, Citra Smara Dewi, Sabila Duhita Drijono

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

This article examines the repatriation of Pita Maha paintings from the 1930s to 1940s, which were returned by the Government of the Netherlands to Indonesia in 2024. Pita Maha, an artistic movement established in Ubud, Bali in 1936, holds an important position in art historiography as a key contributor to the development of modern Balinese painting. The repatriation of these works provides an opportunity to reconsider and expand existing historical narratives. Accordingly, this study aims to contribute to the enrichment of the historiography of modern Balinese painting. The research employs a historical method —encompassing heuristics, source criticism, interpretation, and historiography— …

Sultan Mahmud Badaruddin Ii (Smb Ii): Kajian Sejarah Dan Arkeologi Islam Kesultanan Palembang Darussalam, Wahyu Rizky Andhifani, Nor Huda Ali Nha

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

The intellectual, architectural, and artifactual heritage of the Palembang Darussalam Sultanate during the reign of Sultan Mahmud Badaruddin II (1767–1852) is examined in this study using a historical archaeological approach and textual analysis of manuscripts, buildings, and royal tombstones. This study assumes that Palembang functions as a political force and a centre of Islamic-Malay knowledge. The results show that the Palembang palace functioned as an epistemic space that combined religious understanding (tafaqquh fi al-dīn) and Islamic nobility, as evidenced by religious works such as the Syair Burung Nuri and legal documents (piyagêm) written in the Palembang script. The architecture of …

Timbangan Buku: Mendekolonisasi Komunikasi Politik Di Afrika - Menyusun Ulang Ontologi, Murliana Murliana

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

No abstract provided.

Foundations Of Art: Materials, Methods, And Meaning, Elizabeth Mellott

Art OERs

This course provides an introduction to the tools, materials, and processes used across a wide range of artistic media. The focus is on understanding how different materials shape the way art is created and experienced. Attention is given not only to what artists make, but also to why particular media are chosen to communicate specific ideas, emotions, or perspectives. The physical qualities of materials, the methods used, and the cultural meanings attached to them all influence artistic decision-making.

The course surveys several major categories of artistic media. Pigment-based practices include painting, drawing, and printmaking, where color and mark-making form the …

Weighted, I Drown Peacefully, Clarke P. Hamilton, Masaru Suzuki

Honors Thesis

weighted, i drown peacefully is a call-and-response to my ancestral history and heritage as African American, and my physical experience at the door of no return on Goree Island off the coast of Dakar, Senegal.

Through ceramic face pots invoking the face jugs recovered from Edgefield, South Carolina, visual metaphors of the calla lily and cowrie shell, wood iris petals holding water, and a watercolor painting with Adinkra symbols Adwo & Sankofa, I mark the Atlantic Ocean as a resting place of my ancestors.

This piece is for those who have transitioned from this plane to the next. I carry …

Pengantar Dari Editor Vol. 16 No. 1 (April) 2026, Rahayu Surtiati

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

This edition of Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya Vol. 16 No. 1 (2026) presents a range of studies that affirm culture as a dynamic domain continuously shaped by processes of negotiation, transformation, and reinterpretation across diverse social, historical, and political contexts. The articles explore the creation and innovation of artistic practices as representations of collective identity, the dialectics between preservation and renewal of tradition, and the strategic role of culture in national development. In addition, issues of historiography and colonial legacy are examined through postcolonial perspectives that offer new readings of Indonesian art, while discussions on values and social structures address …

Resurrection In Gold, Samantha K. Kelley

Undergraduate Theses

The human experience consistently brings about themes of brokenness, oftentimes leading to feelings of loss, confusion, and a desire for repair. Guided by a metaphor found in kintsugi (a Japanese art form), this thesis aims to explore and illustrate both brokenness and repair, through a lens of Christian theology.

The beginning of this project focuses on brokenness, illustrating the brokenness that is found in life by destroying old artworks in various ways. The method of breaking each piece also aimed to connect to a way brokenness is commonly found in life, for example – society tearing us down, artworks being …

Exploring Innovative Display Of Painting Through Creating A Dual-Sided Suspended Piece, Erin K. Tichota

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

For this project, I aimed to expand upon my existent painting skills and learn new methods through unconventional techniques for display. My concept of this piece was to convey the sinking and stagnant feeling of being in a rut of depression. The ropes are meant to convey a web of thoughts that the subject is trapped in, while they are sinking deeper in their bed. The dual sided aspect of this project is meant to further emphasize the concept through creating a sense of  duality and permanence.

Back Cover, Michaela Velleno, Erin Robinson, Zoé Shaikh

.RAW Journal of Art and Design

No abstract provided.

Credits, Michaela Velleno, Erin Robinson, Zoé Shaikh

.RAW Journal of Art and Design

No abstract provided.

Artist Index, Sam Arrigoni

.RAW Journal of Art and Design

No abstract provided.

'Untitled (Works On Memory)', Itzel Camarillo-Gonzalez

.RAW Journal of Art and Design

No abstract provided.

'Between The Lupine' & 'The Clovers, Whitetailed Deer', Victoria Dai

.RAW Journal of Art and Design

No abstract provided.

'The Cycle Of Nature: Decay', Taz Fruhauf

.RAW Journal of Art and Design

No abstract provided.

'Last Voyage' & 'From Eden', Luke Gillon, Joshua Mahlow

.RAW Journal of Art and Design

No abstract provided.

'How To Dice An Onion' & 'Glacier', Theo Milner-Hansen, Alyssa Shavely

.RAW Journal of Art and Design

No abstract provided.

'Awake', Jordan Mendelevitch

.RAW Journal of Art and Design

No abstract provided.

'Outgrown' & 'Withered', Elle Gaspar, Maya Delaney

.RAW Journal of Art and Design

No abstract provided.

'Cause & Effect Of Beauty Standards'; 'Dissolution: Whale Fall'; & 'Enumeration And Ethical Hacking Iv', Zoé Shaikh, Lillie Turinsky

.RAW Journal of Art and Design

No abstract provided.

'Angels Die With U', Sofia Del Gatto

.RAW Journal of Art and Design

No abstract provided.