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Syracuse University

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Articles 1 - 30 of 119

Full-Text Articles in Fine Arts

Brief Candles: Memory, Degradation Of Time, Indices And Activation, Jared A. Dominique May 2026

Brief Candles: Memory, Degradation Of Time, Indices And Activation, Jared A. Dominique

Theses - ALL

This thesis explores the relationship between landscape, memory, and image-making through a multidisciplinary practice spanning photography, painting, and collage. Rooted in early experiences with skateboarding as a framework, the work adopts a subcultural way of seeing that reinterprets urban space as fluid, contingent, and open to reconfiguration. This perspective informs an ongoing investigation of post-industrial and altered environments as sites marked by both physical and historical violence. The project frames these landscapes as “spectral,” holding traces of human activity, memory, and absence. Alongside this external mapping, it examines an internal landscape shaped by visual memory, personal experience, and mediated imagery, …


Talking To The Eyes: Paradoxes Of Ineffability And Effusivity In Mark-Making, Theodore Xavier Berg May 2026

Talking To The Eyes: Paradoxes Of Ineffability And Effusivity In Mark-Making, Theodore Xavier Berg

Theses - ALL

Redefining mark-making as an active form of material signification has helped me understand my experience of the paradox of ineffability. This experience is as accurately described by the term effusivity as it is by ineffability, because it is not a matter of what cannot be expressed, but rather of what cannot not be expressed; of the experience that inescapably accompanies expression and signification. As our material means of expression and signification evolve digitally, the consequences of their contradictions become more discernible.


Cruising The Unseen: Queer Semioerotics And The Aesthetics Of Denial, Carl Voss May 2026

Cruising The Unseen: Queer Semioerotics And The Aesthetics Of Denial, Carl Voss

Theses - ALL

My art practice is rooted in the body—its pleasures, longings, limits, and shared vulnerabilities. I work across painting, printmaking, and drawing, utilizing a strategy coined Queer Semioerotics. My process starts with lived experience in queer communities, particularly within nightlife, the Pup Play community, and other intimate spaces of connection. My work traces how desire, memory, and care take visual form through documentation, material play, and modes of denial. These works explore how joy and intimacy continue despite anti-Queer sentiment, social isolation, and state violence. Through gestures of withholding, redaction, and illegibility, the works create openings for longing and recognition rather …


Drowned, Pleasured And Veiled, Taylor Simone Gearhart May 2026

Drowned, Pleasured And Veiled, Taylor Simone Gearhart

Theses - ALL

Drowned, Pleasured and Veiled explores how societal ideas around romantic passion can mask manipulative and violent behavior. It examines historical and pop cultural representations of romance that give cover to the everyday violence that patriarchy visits on women within intimate relationships. ​This body of work explores themes of shame, control, desire, and the ways physical and emotional violence can be threaded throughout those experiences. Through photography and performance, the artist visualizes and interrogates the ways power pervades intimate relationships.


Everything Waits In The Dark: The Silence Had A Pulse And It Was Mine, Sophia Hashemi May 2026

Everything Waits In The Dark: The Silence Had A Pulse And It Was Mine, Sophia Hashemi

Theses - ALL

Sophia Hashemi’s work examines collage and screenprinting as methods for navigating uncertainty, memory, and the shifting architecture of the self. Her practice engages making as a negotiation between control and surrender, where meaning emerges through attention to instability rather than resolution. Drawing from Dada photomontage, German Expressionism, and film noir, alongside frameworks such as Legacy Russell’s Glitch Feminism and Michel Foucault’s Power/Knowledge, she explores disruption as a psychological and structural strategy in works that move between visibility and concealment, past and present, intuition and construction. Hashemi positions art-making as a cyclical practice where fragmentation reconstructs memory and multiplies the self …


Apparatus Of Relief: On Sustained Exhaustion, Jiayue Yu May 2026

Apparatus Of Relief: On Sustained Exhaustion, Jiayue Yu

Theses - ALL

This thesis examines how contemporary capitalism manages a shared condition of exhaustion—the accumulation of stress, alienation, and mental fatigue—by offering calibrated forms of relief that leave its underlying causes intact. Approaching exhaustion as a collective and structurally produced condition, I make photographs that trace how it is softened and normalized within the spaces we inhabit and move through in our daily lives. Central to the project are what I describe as “apparatuses of relief”: infrastructural features embedded in public and semi-public spaces that are designed to regulate affect and soothe nerves. Operating beneath the surface, these elements promise momentary relief …


Silence After Freedom, Md Minhajul Abedin May 2026

Silence After Freedom, Md Minhajul Abedin

Theses - ALL

The project examines how the 1947 Partition of Bengal and India and its fraught legacies continue to shape communal identities and lived experience in Noakhali, Bangladesh. I have used photography as a tool to construct historical memory and to examine how memory and violence are inscribed in place, while visual practice can revisit histories and engage with contemporary lived experience, which official narratives have ignored. I chose Noakhali as a site to understand the regional realities of the Indian subcontinent in a post-colonial era. Noakhali is a southern district of Bangladesh, where I was born and raised. This area has …


“The Fluid Archive” Innovating The Past, Protecting The Future (Virtual Reality And Cultural Preservation), Umar Bashir May 2026

“The Fluid Archive” Innovating The Past, Protecting The Future (Virtual Reality And Cultural Preservation), Umar Bashir

Theses - ALL

ABSTRACT This thesis repositions cultural preservation as an experiential and interpretive practice rather than a purely documentary one. Centered on selected Mughal-era monuments of the Walled City of Lahore—structures increasingly affected by environmental decay and urban transformation—it investigates how the sensory and atmospheric dimensions of heritage can persist beyond material deterioration. Rather than reconstructing these sites through strict architectural fidelity, the project proposes The Fluid Archive, an immersive Virtual Reality (VR) environment that prioritizes embodied experience, spatial perception, and memory-driven reconstruction. Acknowledging that history is a constructed narration of the past, the project engages digital technologies as active agents in …


Su Drama Picnic Production Photos, Henry Killbourn, Alex Jainchill, Reyna Sanchez Feb 2026

Su Drama Picnic Production Photos, Henry Killbourn, Alex Jainchill, Reyna Sanchez

Drama - All Scholarship

This project strengthens the Syracuse University Department of Drama’s ability to document its theatrical productions through high-quality digital photography. With support from the SOURCE grant, the department acquired updated photography equipment that enables students to capture clearer, more accurate images of performances. These photographs document acting, staging, costumes, sets, and lighting in a professional and archival manner.


Su Drama Bernarda Alba Production Photos, Henry Killbourn, Alex Jainchill, Reyna Sanchez Nov 2025

Su Drama Bernarda Alba Production Photos, Henry Killbourn, Alex Jainchill, Reyna Sanchez

Drama - All Scholarship

This project strengthens the Syracuse University Department of Drama’s ability to document its theatrical productions through high-quality digital photography. With support from the SOURCE grant, the department acquired updated photography equipment that enables students to capture clearer, more accurate images of performances. These photographs document acting, staging, costumes, sets, and lighting in a professional and archival manner.


Welcome To Hotel Thai: Labor, Love, And The Space Between My Mothers, Tripty Tamang Pakhrin Aug 2025

Welcome To Hotel Thai: Labor, Love, And The Space Between My Mothers, Tripty Tamang Pakhrin

Theses - ALL

This thesis explores maternal labor, silence, and family boundaries through my experience of growing up at Hotel Thai, a restaurant and home located on the open border between Nepal and India. The hotel is run by my three parents: my mother, my father, and his first wife. My two mothers live and work side by side every day but do not speak to each other. Their silence is not emptiness, but a way of surviving and holding the family together. This paper discusses my film, performance, installation, and printmaking works to explore how care, memory, and labor are expressed without …


Toys And Gems, Neil Mattern Jun 2025

Toys And Gems, Neil Mattern

Theses - ALL

This thesis presents an overview of the body of work I have developed during my time at Syracuse University, along with the concepts, motivations, and experiences that inform it. It examines how my education has shaped both my artistic voice and technical approach, tracing the influence of key mentors, historical and contemporary artists, and personal experiences. The document also provides detailed descriptions of my process, with particular attention to copperplate etching and the integration of commercial aesthetics into fine art practice. Finally, it outlines the future trajectory of my work through the lens of NeilMart LLC - my evolving platform …


Where The Soul Belongs: The Search For A Meaningful Life Through Han Funerary Art — With A Focus On The Mawangdui T-Shaped Painting And Jinqueshan Han Tomb Silk Painting, Tong Su Jun 2025

Where The Soul Belongs: The Search For A Meaningful Life Through Han Funerary Art — With A Focus On The Mawangdui T-Shaped Painting And Jinqueshan Han Tomb Silk Painting, Tong Su

Theses - ALL

Perceptions of life and death are deeply embedded in the artistic expressions of a society, shaped by its cultural, philosophical and social environment. This study explores how funerary paintings from the early Han dynasty - the Mawangdui T-shaped painting and the Jinqueshan Han tomb silk painting - reflect evolving views of life and the afterlife under changing social conditions. While both paintings derive from the funerary traditions of Chu culture and Daoist beliefs in immortality, their differences highlight a significant shift: the Mawangdui T-Shaped Painting emphasizes ascent to the heavenly world through nature worship and ancestral connections, while the Jinqueshan …


From Descent To Creation – Women Descenders In Katabasis Stories, Ruilin Shi Jun 2025

From Descent To Creation – Women Descenders In Katabasis Stories, Ruilin Shi

Theses - ALL

Katabasis, the journey to the underworld and back, is a classic narrative in mythologies and modern literature around the world. However, the uniqueness of the women descenders and the connection between the underworld and femininity remain underexamined. This thesis examines the differences between men and women descenders in Katabasis narratives, including their different narrative structures, relationship with the underworld, and psychological needs in this journey. Using a comparative analysis of classical and modern katabasis narratives, this study employs a feminine perspective to examine the classic descent stories across different cultures and time periods. The student reveals the unexamined reasons why …


Illustration As Analysis: Discussing Gender Bias And Stereotypes In The Design Of Female Characters In Chinese Video Games, Hanyu Shi Jun 2025

Illustration As Analysis: Discussing Gender Bias And Stereotypes In The Design Of Female Characters In Chinese Video Games, Hanyu Shi

Theses - ALL

This research is dedicated to examining gender bias in the design of female characters in Chinese video games, and exploring how illustration strategies can effectively promote the transformation of female characters from stereotypical and one-dimensional to more diverse and three-dimensional representations.Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods, this research synthesizes and applies a multifaceted research approach that includes a literature review, sociological and feminist theoretical frameworks, semi-structured interviews, in-depth case studies, and visual cultural analysis. By combing the existing literature and several computer game cases on the market, this research reveals the profound influence of traditional cultural concepts …


Exploring Self-Narratives Through Visual Art: How Young Female Artists Form Their Identity, Jingyang Zhou Jun 2025

Exploring Self-Narratives Through Visual Art: How Young Female Artists Form Their Identity, Jingyang Zhou

Theses - ALL

This paper focuses on exploring how female artists are able to develop their identity from research on self-narratives in their work. Many artist with a strong and unique voice incorporates aspects of their personality and perspective into their work (Robinson, 1985). Among them, I have observed that contemporary female artists in their twenties have navigated social changes and experienced psychological struggles while striving to understand themselves and find their role in the society. In this process, self-narratives have emerged as a vital and indispensable tool. In this paper, I will study the related theories, study the work of historical and …


Annihilation, Reconstruction And Harmony In Carnal Desire, Yukang Tao May 2025

Annihilation, Reconstruction And Harmony In Carnal Desire, Yukang Tao

Theses - ALL

This thesis investigates the aesthetic, ethical, and philosophical implications of meat consumption and bodily commodification of humans and animals within capitalist hierarchies through the lens of digital art, performance and sculpture. Focusing on the intersection of humanity, animality, and technological embodiment, the project interrogates how contemporary systems of power aestheticize violence and disguise exploitation under the guise of ethical consumption. Inspired by critical theories, particularly of Amber Husain, Jacques Derrida, George Bataille, and Donna Haraway, the thesis examines the ambivalent tensions between seduction and slaughter, subjectivity and domination, and how these dynamics are embedded in both animal and human exploitation. …


Hope In The Living Water, Athena Grace Schamowski May 2025

Hope In The Living Water, Athena Grace Schamowski

Theses - ALL

This thesis focuses on the concepts and ideas behind my paintings. It aims to explain the conceptual and theological aspects of my works as well as the importance of faith in a Christian’s life. Using my own experiences, I reveal how faith can help us understand sufferings, and how through our faith-related experiences we mature in spirit, learn to understand God’s ways, and ultimately enjoy His companionship. Though our faith does not live by understanding all the ways of God, by growing in faith we will understand in spirit that all things will work out for good for those who …


Chinese Women’S Perspectives In Metaphorical Narratives: Exploring Identity, Growth, And Societal Expectations Through Illustration, Cancan Jin May 2025

Chinese Women’S Perspectives In Metaphorical Narratives: Exploring Identity, Growth, And Societal Expectations Through Illustration, Cancan Jin

Theses - ALL

This thesis explores the struggles and growth of Chinese women through metaphorical narratives, focusing on how they navigate societal expectations, gender inequality, and personal identity. First, it examines the importance of metaphor and anthropomorphism in storytelling. It analyzes how these techniques are used to address women's issues. Second, it explores the social background of Chinese women, from the May Fourth Movement, which challenged traditional gender roles, to the socialist era’s push for labor equality, and the modern struggles of workplace discrimination and the "double burden." Third, it introduces Tortoise on the Way, a visual thesis written and illustrated by the …


The Idiot's Asylum: What Better Place To Do It Than From My Own Grave?, Kara Stallings May 2025

The Idiot's Asylum: What Better Place To Do It Than From My Own Grave?, Kara Stallings

Theses - ALL

The Idiot's Asylum: “What better place to do it than from my own grave?” is an essay that examines how vulnerability and collaboration operate as the throughlines of collective creativity. By utilizing live performance, large-scale installation, video, food, and humor, I explore how immersing my audience in a unique experience encourages them to bear witness to or physically engage in a social and vulnerable act of trust – especially within a state of uncertainty. I consider historical and cultural movements centered around radical play, humor, and participation such as Dada, Surrealism, Fluxus, Situationism, and feminist performance art to be foundational …


Allegories In Fiction: Shaping Our Thoughts And Outcome Of Technological Advancements, Rick Li May 2025

Allegories In Fiction: Shaping Our Thoughts And Outcome Of Technological Advancements, Rick Li

Theses - ALL

This thesis investigates how fictional storytelling, particularly in science fiction films, games, and literature, influences real-world technological advancements and public perception of innovation. By examining recurring themes such as automation, technological overdependence, ethical dilemmas in AI, this study highlights how media functions as a cultural reflection to reality, and as a speculative tool. While drawing on popular examples like The Terminator (1984), Fahrenheit 451 (1953), I, Robot (2004), and The Mitchells vs. The Machines (2021), this research also considers the importance of contemporary and minority voices like artist Kapwani Kiwanga in reimagining futures beyond dominant Western narratives. These stories reflect …


Breaking Boundaries: Memory And Female Identity, Hui Qi May 2025

Breaking Boundaries: Memory And Female Identity, Hui Qi

Theses - ALL

My artistic practice revolves around material exploration and transformation. Initially, I focused on wearable metal jewelry, as its precision and independent craftsmanship allowed me to express the strength of female identity. Inspired by Mindy Herrin-Lewis’s use of micro-sculpting and her integration of ceramics and metal enameling, I began incorporating color, texture, and layered surfaces to express emotion and personal narrative. By merging metal, enamel, ceramics, and found objects, I create contemporary jewelry and sculptural pieces that bridge traditional craftsmanship with modern storytelling. This thesis explores how art serves as a tool for reshaping identity and reclaiming autonomy. In navigating the …


Existing Now In Space And Time: In A Body With Limits On Both, Kirstin Dunlap May 2025

Existing Now In Space And Time: In A Body With Limits On Both, Kirstin Dunlap

Theses - ALL

Kirstin Dunlap’s work is deeply rooted in her understanding of the personal connection between the body and the Earth. Every individual’s life experience is shaped by their relationship with these two bodies—both of which undergo growth, erosion, and decay processes. For Dunlap, there is a striking similarity between these two realms: both are places of tension, where struggles for survival unfold. She sees herself in the fringes of the Earth, in areas where natural forces collide. This conflict mirrors a personal battle within her own body, where her immune system mistakenly attacks itself, resulting in a body that is progressively …


In Favor Of The Mother-Artist: The Case For Self-Actualization In Motherhood, Lottie Elizabeth Caiella May 2025

In Favor Of The Mother-Artist: The Case For Self-Actualization In Motherhood, Lottie Elizabeth Caiella

Theses - ALL

This thesis paper discusses the symbiotic relationship between the roles of mothering and being an artist and makes the case for why art made by mothers can have a lasting impact on both society as well as within the family dynamics of the artists’ lives. The obstacles that stand in the way of mothers pursuing art, or even pursuing becoming her full self, are many. This paper reimagines what the role of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs might look like from the lens of a caretaker, and how it can be an overall triumph for society from a wider perspective. This …


Cultural Rebirth: The Application Of Character Design In The Promotion Of Chinese Cultural Heritage, Fan Tang Aug 2024

Cultural Rebirth: The Application Of Character Design In The Promotion Of Chinese Cultural Heritage, Fan Tang

Theses - ALL

This thesis explores an innovative approach to communicating and revitalizing traditional Chinese stories through the art of character design applied to artifacts in the British Museum. The author is a commercial illustrator inspired by traditional Chinese culture and dedicated to communicating the beauty and richness of it to a global audience. This study aims to breathe new life into cultural artifacts by combining visual art and character design to transform Chinese artifacts into vivid characters. The thesis discusses the unlimited potential of character design for cultural communication and heritage preservation and how this approach can increase the visibility and impact …


Rage Against The Archive: Institutional Critique Through New Media Art, Anshul Roy Aug 2024

Rage Against The Archive: Institutional Critique Through New Media Art, Anshul Roy

Theses - ALL

In this paper, I discuss my encounter with the colonial lens of photography in the New York Public Library’s digital archives, which culminated in my thesis project Rage Against the Archive, comprising of video, performance and new media art that critically engages with the question of visual ethics and how institutional archives should display and disseminate certain historical images online. Each chapter in this paper details a significant paradigm shift I encountered during my MFA that transformed my creative practice into a research-based conceptual approach. I draw on scholarship related to photography in colonial India, archives, institutional critique, electronic civil …


Dead Woman Walking: Articulating Historical Violence Toward The Femme Through Visual Art And Cultural Experience, Angelica Elizabeth Starcovic May 2024

Dead Woman Walking: Articulating Historical Violence Toward The Femme Through Visual Art And Cultural Experience, Angelica Elizabeth Starcovic

Theses - ALL

Individual identity formation is a crucial tool in my artistic practice. I rely on articulating my experiences as femme to reclaim and denounce the signifiers of femininity invented and perverted by patriarchy. Using historical survey of instances and explorations of fear and violence through art and visual culture, my works reckon with how archaic gender beliefs still entrench themselves in our contemporary worldviews and their psychological results. The deconstructions of these facades uncover the violence and fear ingrained in feminine identity inflicted through bodily control in culture. Here I argue for her humanity against the abject violence culture and media …


Revelations Of Mary Shelley: Death, Immortality, And The Creator-Creature Relationship In Frankenstein, Yuqing Liu May 2024

Revelations Of Mary Shelley: Death, Immortality, And The Creator-Creature Relationship In Frankenstein, Yuqing Liu

Theses - ALL

This thesis aims to explore the cultural, and societal backgrounds, and interpersonal relationships that influenced Mary Shelley in crafting Frankenstein, and to understand how these elements are mirrored in the novel. It endeavors to examine the linkage between the intentions that authors embed within their works and the realm of reality. Analyzing Shelley's inspirations and motives through the prism of her social context and personal connections, this thesis delves into the Romantic and Gothic literary traits manifested in Frankenstein. Through this inquiry, a creative work inspired by Frankenstein was developed, intending to serve as a vessel for reflection on philosophical …


Mental Health Problems Of The Firstborn Children In China, Jianye Zou May 2024

Mental Health Problems Of The Firstborn Children In China, Jianye Zou

Theses - ALL

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the negative psychological impact that first-born children experience when facing the impending arrival of younger siblings in their families and the factors of these problems in China. In addition, this thesis helps the children prepare for the process of fitting in the new family structure via relevant artworks. Based on the unique situation, such as the only-child policy and culture of Chinese society, this thesis analyzes the factors affecting first-born children during the transition from being an only child to having siblings during the arrival of a second child within the family. …


Discarded And Forgotten, Declan J. Yert May 2024

Discarded And Forgotten, Declan J. Yert

Theses - ALL

This thesis serves as written documentation of the processes, outcomes, and the conceptual nature of my sculptural practice. I consider and question our set definitions towards the natural world and human-built environments. Using emerging lexicons that serve as a starting point for defining instances of synthetic materials merging with organic ecosystems, I draw from locations, scientific research, individual observations, and human-built environments that have produced or influenced the objects and materials I use in my everyday life and art practice. Vocabulary and language surrounding the excess of objects and materials in natural environments are interrogated and subverted to reflect acts …