Fine Arts Commons^™

On Assemblage And Erasure, Dante Migone-Ojeda

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

Through textual and visual research, I assert that the root cause of the injustice that drives my work and the work of the artists within my thesis paper is erasure. I attribute this erasure in large part to the role of neoliberalism upon the world stage, and it’s pervasive global influence. While neoliberalism did not create inequality, it has codified it and through its relentless push for “progress” it has propped up a dynamic of oppressor and oppressed. This in turn leads to simple categorization and ultimately erasure. I posit that my work not only makes this erasure visible, but …

Zeitgeist: An Artist's Present Perspective, Danielle Leventhal

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

This statement is an analysis of my process in creating a zeitgeist collection of painted portraits. The pieces in this collection began with a live, in-person session with each of my subjects, all of whom are my friends: females ages 18-22 at Wash.U. An interest in the brain and mirror neurons, as well as Susan Stewart’s idea that the face is a “text” that must be read in order to exist, is what enabled these portraits to become a psychological examination of the spirit of our time. The material process of collapsing layers of time, emotions, and thoughts on the …

To Sleep, Perchance To Dream, Carla G. Steppan

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

Focusing on the devaluation of monumentality identified by architects in the mid-twentieth century, this paper examines how the reduction of form throughout the history of architecture and how such reduction affects space framed by such architecture. By applying the malleability of symbolic meaning to a closed set of symbols, the nature of the set is re-made and subsequently manipulated to theoretically set the stage for a romantic narrative. A formal interest in reproduction and repetition serves a conceptual interest in allusion of forms in the creation of the illusion of narrative and romance.

Cuba A La Yuma: In, Around, And Millennial Thoughts, Zoe Kline

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

The camera phone prompted a new stylistic approach that has created an outlet for inexpensive and democratized photography, seemingly giving anyone the revolutionary ability to be called an artist. It is because of this that photojournalism, as an art practice, is losing its intrinsic ambitions — to employ visual storytelling to, more effectively than written word, foster positive social and political activism. Photographs of war and marginalized people in society have become both exploitative and dehumanizing in their treatment of both photographic style and relationship to subject and have only numbed their viewers to today’s atrocities. I look to find …

Wax Bodies: Candles, Queerness, & Taking Up Space, Moya Shpuntoff

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

My partner and collaborator Callaway Fox and I use queer surrealist installation, craft practices, and performance in order to address queer and disabled temporality, articulating our experiences as disabled queer femme artists through abstracted and literal exploration of femme bodies in space. In performance and installation works Hospital Performance: Part I and Hospital Performance: Part II, we responded to our experience of marginalization, medical malpractice, and emotional isolation, ultimately exploring queer and disabled temporality through queer surrealism. Hand-poured scented candles became metaphors for queer and disabled bodies, and along with other craft practices used in this work, are a …

The Lifted Shadow, Xinyi Xie

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

The Chinese shadow puppet tradition is one of negotiation: where the local (folktales and traditions) meets the national (“culture”?), and the national (??) meets the international (???). It is a cultural practice in which the "masses" create "entertainment," which is then intellectualized and "refined" by social (and cultural) “elites.”

In a nation that has rejected "feudalism" in the past, the shadow puppet tradition is one of many at risk of being commercialized and exported as national commodity. It offers potential cultural “heritage,” soft power to go hand-in-hand with China's economic and industrial might. When a nation has produced everything and …

Crossing The Divide: Art As Mediation And Pilgrimage, Sophia Keskey

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

Founded on my personal experiences of growing up in an interfaith household and my high school semester abroad in Israel, my artistic practice seeks to build bridges between people, connecting diverse communities across divides (cultural, religious, economic, racial, ethnic etc.). Through two process, mediation and pilgrimage to self, specifically in using myself as an active participant, I argue that the process of making can become the neutral ground in which to build relationships and begin to imagine coexistence.

Mediation is expressed by Homi Bhabha’s definition of negotiation: “The ability to articulate differences in space and time…to intervene in the forest …

“I Would Save You, But My Boobs Keep Getting In The Way”: An Examination Of My Art Through The Lens Of The Heroic Myth And Alternative Comics, Barrett Hollingsworth

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

My artwork challenges the masculine, violent idea of the hero through utilizing the visual language of comic books, as well as autobiographical themes. In this examination of my work, I explore conceptual and visual precedents and relate them back to my own practice throughout. My essay establishes the idea of the contemporary American heroic myth by looking at Joseph Campbell, as well as more contemporary re-examinations and criticisms of his ideas, relating the modern myth to the superhero comic genre. Next, I explore the history of underground comics, specifically feminist autobiographical comics, and relate the works of artists such as …

Yung Ladies, Leah Nordman

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

Yung Ladies began as an investigation into female representation and has expanded into a brand and even lifestyle. Founded as a space for female solidarity, Yung Ladies works to break down notions of what a young woman should be and simultaneously spreads our ideals and attitudes through our clothing line and social media presence. This paper spans the ideological movements, various forms of artistic media, and artist precedents that have inspired this project.Yung Ladies includes investigations into new media identities and notions fad ideological movements, consumerism and conspicuous consumption, and brand identity as a means of personal representation. These ideas …