Home. Objects. Transitions., Fei Gao

Masters Theses

As migratory life challenges traditional understandings of "home," can domestic objects, materials, or substitutes transformed into portable art forms soothe migratory anxiety, navigate connections to home, and become alternatives to the ideal home?

This thesis is an investigation of the value of domestic objects as transitional markers of "home" and their ability to foster positive emotional connection among those whose lives are in flux migrating people. Based on British psychiatrist Donald W. Winnicott's research on "Transitional Objects" or "Transitional Phenomena" such objects not only represent "comfort objects" for infants but also foreshadow the many roles assigned by individuals throughout their …

A Presence Of P____ And W__Th, Riley Wilson

Masters Theses

This body of work examines the involvement of association as it relates to our cultural interpretations of natural phenomena. Flowers and animals, both real and imagined, have been used as symbols for human morality since the beginning of human history. Two sources with which I drew inspiration from are medieval bestiaries and the Victorian practice of flower language. By combining elements from these references, I aim to pair this idea about the human need for classification with my own considerations about my identity. In combination, I also aim to highlight the responsibility that is intrinsic to curiosity. When faced with …

Soul Furnace / فرن الأرواح, Isa Ghanayem

Masters Theses

“This is the good washing, this is (the washing) which separates the dirty body from the pure body. This is like silver mixed with lead, it is separated from it by this (process): one makes for it a cupel of bones, which is what is called the “head of the dog” and of which the common name is kūja-which is the crucible—and this must be made of burnt bones. One melts the silver in it, one gives it a strong fire: the cupel will absorb and receive the lead, the fire will make its subtle (part) fly away and extirpate …

Algorithmic Mirage: The Enigma Of Black Box Algorithm, Brenda Li

Masters Theses

In Algorithmic Mirage, I delve into the intricate connections between black-box algorithms, perception, and control. This artist book presents a series of thought-provoking projects that expose the ways in which algorithmic distortions shape our understanding of value, relationships, and social norms. By materializing the intangible and using jewelry as a metaphor, I reveal the power dynamics that drive our interactions with technology and each other. The book unfolds through three interconnected projects, each focusing on different aspects of the relationship between black-box algorithms and human perception. The first project, Boxed Rings - Algorithmic Distortion, uses diamond rings as an entry …

Rooted In Topsoil, Jiaying Wang

Masters Theses

Disillusioned by my transnational identity, I have come to realize that my sense of belonging is no longer attached to any physical location, but instead to a state of mind, to an intimacy with the world. My notion of home is an obscure and unsettled—at times utopian—idea, which can be infinitely decoded, re-positioned and re-established psychologically. This thesis is an investigation of that liminal state, questioning the paradoxical place at the intersection of longing and belonging, interior and exterior, rootedness and uprootedness. Through a collection of short essays that accompany projects, I seek to unpack the precarious emotional complexities that …

Moretheless, Abdelghani Alnahawi

Masters Theses

material investigations becoming questions with interjections

Making Then Meaning, Ben Denzer

Masters Theses

This is an artist talk contained within a book. It is 816 pages and 49 minutes long. Closed captions run across the spreads. A video of this talk can be watched on bendenzer.com/making-then-meaning

At RISD, I’ve been prompted to expand the scope and tools of my practice and to reflect on questions of meaning in my work.

I spend my days making things, but I’ve never really had good answers to questions of why I make the things I make, or what their meaning is. I don’t think there are simple answers to these questions.

I think meaning comes from …

Eloquentia Perfecta: Performing Public Speaking To Enhance Scientific Presentation Skills Of Pharmacy Students, Marta J. Brooks, Trudi Wright

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

The Jesuits know the importance of words and their delivery, both on the page and orally, which is why they place heavy emphasis on “perfect eloquence,” or eloquentia perfecta. It was in the spirit of the adjustment of words with a “sensitivity to patients’ needs” that inspired a performance class of public speaking within the graduate pharmacy curriculum at Regis University. The courses described herein are part of the core curriculum within the School of Pharmacy. They place emphasis on not only understanding the science of what the students are communicating, but how they communicate this information. Students are …

Evanescent: Animating Space, Kyle Servando

City and Regional Planning

A redesign of the open space of The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA into an plein air gallery for the public to be their own artists.

Both Human And Holy: A Veneration Of Personhood Through Mythic Means, Abigail Porter

MFA in Visual Arts Theses

Mythology acts as a reflection of humanity, a connection of personhood and storytelling that spans through history. This essay covers how the ideas of myth, personhood, archetype, and portraiture remain central to my work. The nature of mythology is innately human in all aspects, centering on ideas being both fictitious and truthful - which allows the ideas of the dualistic aspects between the personhood and mythos with the figures worked with. My work is about people; I elevate the figure into mythic while using those myths to discuss the aspects of identity. My work leans heavily upon my own fixation …

The Gilded Tropics: Winslow Homer And John Singer Sargent In Florida, 1886-1917, Theodore W. Barrow

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the Floridian works of Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent in the context of tourism, race, and the environment as perceptions of the tropics in an Anglo-American context. Both artists sojourned in Florida and produced a number of watercolors and related oils that not only testify to a rapidly-expanding tourist industry to the Sunshine State, but also update the Romantic myths of the tropics with a more sober, ironic Realist take. While Homer and Sargent continue to be popular subjects for studies and exhibitions on their own, this dissertation is the first to consider how their shared …

The Artistry Of Mediation: A Look At Mediation’S Effectiveness For Resolving Cross-Cultural Disputes Through The Leonardo Da Vinci Conflict Between France’S Louvre Museum And Italy’S Uffizi Gallery, Sophia D. Casetta

Pepperdine Journal of Communication Research

Art is powerful, as it symbolizes the history and identity of the country that claims it. However, through timely transitions, such as trade and wars, the ownership of meaningful artworks blurs, with museums fighting to claim their heritage to put on honorable display for their people. Mediation can be a peaceful means to resolve art ownership disputes, as it accounts for respecting the individual cultures of the countries represented in the dispute. Using the key medication traits described within this essay, a prepared mediator involved in such a cross-cultural conflict should be able to help resolve the issue at hand. …

Step 10, Jinhong Cai

Masters Theses

Step 10 is an experiment on provoking empathy through

abstracted elements within my studio practice. I am

proposing to craft an emotional piece without leaning

on my identity. This written thesis consists of two parts:

narrative prose and an explanation of my studio practice.

While the installation is entirely devoid of cultural or

personal references, this text-based thesis is full of them

because it is intended to inform whoever is interested in

learning more about the motive behind this creation.

The questions I bought into the thought and creation

process are: Can a piece of art still successfully bring

out …

Creating Project Contrast: A Video Game Exploring Consciousness And Qualia, Pierce Papke

Honors Projects

Project Contrast is a video game that explores how the unique traits inherent to video games might engage reflective player responses to qualitative experience. Project Contrast does this through suspension of disbelief, avatar projection, presence, player agency in storytelling, visual perception, functional gameplay, and art. Considering the difficulty in researching qualitative experience due to its subjectivity and circular explanations, I created Project Contrast not to analyze qualia, though that was my original hope. I instead created Project Contrast as an avenue for player self-reflection and learning about qualitative experience. While video games might be just code and art on a …

Looking To Entangle, Alex Mclaughlin

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

What kinds of images stick with you? Are they the ones that are readable, understandable right from the get-go? Surely not. Likely, they’re the ones that challenge you, frustrate you, and entangle you in the process of trying to understand them. This thesis argues that the semantics of looking, and the way in which the art-object is experienced through the process of looking, creates the opportunity for the unique engagement of the viewer as more than a bystander. By frustrating them with a lack of information, or rewarding them for looking harder, the artist can make the viewer aware of …

On The Six-Cornered Snowflake, Jackson Hescock

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

On the Six-Cornered Snowflake, named after Johannes Kepler’s 1611 essay on geometrically covering surfaces, is both the title of both my final thesis work and essay. Beginning with an inquiry into the nature of hand-made object as intrinsically valuable, my earlier sculptural work surrounding quilting is broken down and considered as a form of reverence for the American object. This is partly achieved through a comparison to traditional Japanese packing techniques and how my own assembly mirrors and converses with the graceful and sensitive packing of Japanese hand-made goods. Early 20^th-century flight experiments are also hand-made objects of …

A Peeling Art, Terry Rim

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

Action is greater than words, interaction is greater than viewing, and experience is greater than theory. So I came up with a way to make my art into an act of criticism toward consumerism. My art resembles colorful Pop Art on the surface but follows the defiant spirit of Dadaism at the core. It reveals the content full of dark humor and cynicism once the viewer “peels off” the appealing surface by interacting with it. The four artworks analyzed in the paper — Hole, The Twelephone and Alarming Alarm, Self-Destructive Ashtray, and Heavenly Cow — are designed …

Our Magnitude And Bond: An Ethics Of Care For Art Museum Education, Dana Carlisle Kletchka

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

This work responds to contemporary concerns about the future of art museum education and public practice and art museums more broadly in the wake of a global pandemic that has, at present, killed more than a million people in the United States and sickened millions more. I respond to questions posed by the board of the Journal of Social Theory in Art Education in relation to the theme of Inclusion Invasion, expand upon the relations between art museums and communities posited by a post-critical, socially responsive museological framework, and explore the potential for a feminist philosophical Ethics of Care …

A Meditation On Loneliness And The Mind's Limits: Combining Buddhism And Art To Better Understand Our Relationship To The Unknown, William Masters

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

In this essay, I explain how my art practice instigates inquiry into uncomfortable subjects such as loneliness and how our limits of perception and cognition prevent us from understanding and connecting fully with our environments. I begin by illustrating how I make such subjects more approachable by exploiting the inherent capacity of art to be both pleasurable and painful: a work's pleasing aesthetic can make one more receptive to its disquieting content. I then describe how eastern philosophy and western art have influenced my practice. I highlight how Buddhist insights into the relationship between calmness, security and clarity have informed …

Melting, Dripping, Becoming: The Operations Of Memory From The Perspective Of Wax, Naomi Yu

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

In my thesis, I explore how different compositional and material techniques are used to re-create a memory. Looking at artists such as Kiki Smith, Guadalupe Maravilla, and Anselm Keifer, I investigate the ways in which they utilize 2D and 3D materials to re-create feelings of memory.

I argue that the art object can conserve and portray memory through metaphorical acts of preservation. I will be specifically studying the acts of encasing and layering as a means to simulate the feelings of memory. I argue that these metaphorical actions create an artificial sense of time that imbues these objects with created …

A Loud Volume Landscape, Grace Buyers

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

It feels more like sounding it out than constructing it. Choosing and adapting images, concentrating on the auxiliary fragments (out-of-focus elements, the corner of the table, the reflection in the window, the highway median) and the backgrounds (the sky and its clouds, the gravel ground, the movement of the water, the horizons where these meet), I then breathe them together. The final products are primarily collages, and though they are originally constructed from printed media and found objects, their final forms are scanned and rematerialized. The content of these works focuses on the relationships between the chosen fragments and how …

Drawing As Process: Expansiveness Through Constraint, Ciel Miao

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

This paper explores the concept of drawing as a time-based practice, where the process is the core of the artwork rather than the finished product. I divide my artistic concerns into four chapters, each advancing on the previous one, to discuss my drawing practice, which allows for exploration of time and space across a wide array of media and styles of representation. I embrace impulse and intuition in the mark-making process, letting go of control while prioritizing the form of depicted figures over their image. This paper highlights the importance of my inner contradiction and how the process reflects my …

To Dig A Hole And Fill It Back Up, Jackson Whetstone

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

Abstract:

The socioeconomical philosophy of the United States is still very much related to the Marxist Labor Theory of Value which states that “the economic value of a good or service is determined by the amount of socially necessary labor required to produce it” (Das Kapital, Marx 1.) This philosophy has penetrated the way that we think about art and object, and in turn positions art as a means of transaction, thus limiting art to a form of glorified currency. This Essay will chronicle my art practice, that have led up to two thesis pieces, Trench and Dig …

The Hospitality Of Doubt, Ian Grieve

Art Theses and Dissertations

This paper discusses the last two years of research toward a Master of Fine Art in Studio Art. I mainly address my painting practice, but while in the program, I have worked in collage, ceramics, intaglio printmaking, and sculpture. My paintings are thick, multilayered, and often contain ambiguous narratives. The pictures develop through engagement, openness, and response within the work. I seek and embrace connection with viewers of the work. The spectator ‘completes’ the art and enhances or alters the artworks meaning by observing it and applying their individual perspectives. I seek to incorporate a sense of nostalgia and familiarity. …

Eco-Interoception: What Plants, Fungi And Protista Have Taught My Body, Sara Riley Dotterer

Art Theses and Dissertations

To me, ecology is the relational, full-body awareness that I am made up of and deeply connected to everything around me; and for better or worse, this is reciprocal. I form ecotones, an ecological transitional zone between two ecosystems, with the world around me. I use this ecotonal lens to blur binaries and dissolve boundaries between me and the world “outside my body.” During my Masters of Fine Arts at Southern Methodist University, I have continuously explored and represented the lives of various more-than-human species outside of my body, including plants, fungi and protista through an ecotonal lens. Although these …

Dirt Circus: Queering Sports And Home Through Filth, Hannah Patteson

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This monograph accompanies the MFA Thesis Exhibition, “Dirt Circus”. I outline the history of circus and carnival culture and the ways in which queer identities are expressed through these artistic modes. I describe the nonconforming expressions of gender in these arenas through bearded ladies, aerialists, clowns, and the freak show. I then explore various groups from the 70’s to present day, including Bread and Puppet Theater, The Cockettes, and Split Britches, who utilize performance to further their ideologies of gender freedom, anti-capitalism, and sexual liberation. I compare our differing uses of cheap art and public engagement within the realm of …

Alcea, Autumn Johnson

LSU Master's Theses

This exhibition was created with the intent to investigate and celebrate gender fluidity in both nature and humanity by depicting one plant, the hollyhock, whose reproductive parts share a structure that changes from male to female as the plant matures. Alcea consists of prints, drawings, and installations that showcase the hollyhock in each stage of its transition.

This Is A Present From A Small, Distant World, Samantha Slone

MFA in Visual Art

I make toxic pastoral paintings in the style of the Dutch and Old Masters, and media installations which depict natural landscapes as distanced, deconstructed forms. What I explore most in my practice is our damaged relationship with land and nature, and our capitalist and media ecologies as artificial landscapes which suspend us from the natural. In a dissection of the dualisms of man and nature, and progress and sustainability, I create microcosms of our detached condition.

Other Oceans, Other Skies, Sharlene Lee

MFA in Visual Art

I create immersive installations, performances, and time-based media artworks that delve into stories of belonging, feminism, and language as power. These stories offer a potential for transformation from viewer to participant and a shift in how our world is seen and experienced. Through an exploration of perception and affect, I challenge dominant narratives, prompting a contemplation of contemporary power struggles for control.

In this text, I examine the impact of historical borders and migration on my life while also investigating questions of home, shared values, and rituals that contribute to one’s sense of belonging. I also highlight my commitment to …

Elsewhere: In Defense Of Daydreaming, Alex Braden

MFA in Visual Art

Much like music, organic life is an absurd, improbable, and serendipitous instance. I set circular, electric, acoustic, and magnetic forces in motion and allow them to coalesce freely in the hopes of synthesizing unexpected moments of beauty, connection, and harmony.