Fine Arts Commons^™

Held On By A Thread, Annie M. Hutchins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The artist, Annie Hutchins, discusses her Master of Fine Arts thesis exhibition, Held on by a Thread, which was installed at Tipton Gallery in Johnson City, TN, from March 6, 2025, through March 28, 2025, with a public reception held on March 7, 2025. The exhibition is a collection of textile works containing repurposed material artifacts of the life she shared with her maternal family since childhood. The artwork incorporates found objects from the artist’s home, including domestic textiles, clothing, handmade sewing projects, family photographs, and sewing notions. The artworks are made using the printmaking technique of photo emulsion screen …

The Duality Of Perception: Unveiling The Hidden Through Visible Forms, Sharmeen Uqaili

Art Theses and Dissertations

This MFA thesis, The Duality of Perception: Unveiling the Hidden through Visible Form, involves layering paints on shaped wood panels and paper, using the traditional technique of tezhib (gold illumination) and geometric art. Through these layers, I aim to challenge the viewers’ perceptions by simultaneously revealing and concealing elements within the work. Symbols drawn from Islamic traditions such as pomegranates, birds, and ribbons are incorporated in the paintings to carry both cultural and personal significance, evoking my connections to spiritual and physical realms.

Rooted in the principles of Islamic art and informed by spiritual themes such as paradise, divine …

Recollections Of A Tejana Life, Carolina Yáñez

Art Theses and Dissertations

This thesis encompasses the life of a young woman navigating life in Texas through various political and social barriers. My interdisciplinary practice analyzes the historical context of Mexicans in Texas from its Revolutionary period into current injustices. Through fiber, printmaking, and photography I create a visual diary to illustrate what the political has made personal. These works display the beauty of Tejano culture, but also the power struggles that threaten communities I care for, as well as my own existence that persists against far-right wing agendas.

Current politics and government leadership in Texas have inspired me to make artwork calling …

Artists And Inspirations: A Look At The Past And My Present, Sofie A. Curto

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

This paper examines eight artists who have served as inspiration and guidance in my own artistic growth over the past four years. With in depth examinations of each, I dive into their personal life, practices, and experiences. I then examine one of each of their works and reflect on how it pertains to my practice. There are two separate sections that reflect the expanding scope of my work. Each section concludes with an investigation of several of my pieces and my creation process. Finally, there is a description of my four submitted works completed in conjunction with this research.

Cavedivers: A Multi-Media Visual And Musical Release, Emily J. Langford

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

For my graduating UNO Honors Program capstone project, I have chosen to undertake a creative project that involves recording and releasing an album with my band, Cavedivers, while also designing the visual media and advertising graphics to accompany the release. The songs we have recorded were all written and developed before the start of this project. Therefore, this project is less of a songwriting endeavor, since most of that process is already complete, and more of an experimentation and workshop in communicating music through recording and identifying effective trends within graphic design.

As an art major and musician, this has …

The Forgotten House In Richmond Town, Alexandra Cordato

Gandy Dancer Archives

Medium: intaglio etching on paper

Territorio Nepantla: A Visual Exploration Of The Matamoros – Brownsville Borderlands, Michel Valeria Flores Tavizón

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the work presented in the MFA exhibition titled Territorio Nepantla. A multidisciplinary exhibition featuring a visual exploration of the Matamoros and Rio Grande Valley borderlands through the perspective of a Mexican transfronteriza traversing the Matamoros – Brownsville border. The feminist Chicana theory of nepantla, a word from Nahuatl origin meaning “in-between” is central to the exhibition. Scholar Gloria Anzaldua defines the borderlands as a nepantla space, a liminal space where art and la frontera intersect. Nepantla represents the in-betweenness beyond physicality. A nepantla space can be emotional, spiritual, sexual, linguistical and more. This body of work …

These Things Happen, Keleigh E. Mcmullen

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

My artwork emerges from moments of emotional and physical violence—both small and large. Although rooted in my lived experience, the truths I tell in my work are far from unique. Violence often hides in plain sight, buried in the mundane spaces of daily life. Through ceramic sculpture, I spotlight these moments, inviting viewers into a world that is familiar and simultaneously unsettling.

Scale plays a crucial role in this narrative—objects shrink or expand based on their emotional gravity, their object authority, or my own relationship to them. By amplifying the small and shrinking the overwhelming, I reshape how viewers interact …

The Space Between: Engaging And Withholding The Self, Maya Mcdonald

All Theses

This thesis, The Space Between: Engaging and Withholding the Self, documents my journey in understanding the self through the act of oil-painted self-portraiture. Through an exploration of eye contact, body language, non-performative representations of self, and the tension between engagement and detachment, this body of work examines the complexities of visibility, agency, and self-perception. Using my own body as both subject and metaphor, I investigate the interplay between revealing and withholding, questioning the boundaries between what is seen and what remains obscured. Blending classical figure painting techniques with abstracted elements, my work engages in a dialogue between tradition and …

Pedro Aceves Mfa Thesis, Pedro M. Aceves

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

My Work is about looking at Cruising through a queer decolonial lens. Using multiple mediums such as photo, glass, Augmented reality, and film, I explore these queer histories and aesthetics through not just an anthropological approach but also an artistic epistemological approach weaving together narratives of prehispanic and modern queer Latinidad.

Introspection Of A Memory, Luissed Yibirin

Gandy Dancer Archives

Medium: monotype and screenprint

Too Good, Alexandra Cordato

Gandy Dancer Archives

Medium: oil on canvas

Deer Sebastian, Alex Herrera

Gandy Dancer Archives

Medium: oil on canvas

Late Night Light, Alletta Patterson

Gandy Dancer Archives

Medium: acrylic and oil on paper

Silly Little Forget Me Nots, Amelia Weitknecht

Gandy Dancer Archives

Medium: acrylic on canvas

A Little Help From Our Friends, Emily Elizabeth Derosa

Gandy Dancer Archives

Medium: acrylic wire and yarn on canvas

Where Are We Going?, Luciano Deroberts

Gandy Dancer Archives

Medium: photograph

How Do Women Deal With Beauty Standards?, Mandy Lashay Wilson

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the profound impact of beauty standards on women’s lives, focusing on how unrealistic ideals influence their emotional and physical well-being. Through a series of figurative oil paintings, this work examines women’s actions to conform to and reject these standards. It also explores the consequences of striving to meet or falling short of these ideals, such as emotional turmoil, physical pain, potential social exclusion, as well as the comparison, and competitive beauty culture. This research analyzes the motivations behind striving for beauty standards, such as pursuing attention, success, and validation. Drawing from contemporary literature and visual analysis of …

Working To Achieve Flow, Vincente D.A. Fischer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations (2019 - present)

This paper is a thesis for the body of work I created over the last 3 years called Working To Achieve Flow. In the following pages, I will discuss what inspired me to create this body of work, which entailed personal reflection on my own mental health and how it affects my art practice. I will also go over who my influences are: Eva Hesse, Willem De Kooning, and Jenny Saville. Each of these artists inspires me to think about my work in different ways, which has helped me develop into the artist I am today. Finally, I will break …

Quinceañera, Luissed Yibirin

Gandy Dancer Archives

Medium: collagraph

Empanadas, Sara Aparicio

Gandy Dancer Archives

Medium: paint chips on matboard

The Unspoken Game, Alletta Patterson

Gandy Dancer Archives

Medium: ink and charcoal on paper

Necrolog (10 Years), Desislava Furber

Gandy Dancer Archives

Medium: relief print and spray paint on paper

Live Figure, Jade Maracic

Gandy Dancer Archives

Medium: oil on canvas

Kissing Booth, Emily Elizabeth Derosa

Gandy Dancer Archives

Medium: acrylic on canvas

Homunculus, Amelia Weitknecht

Gandy Dancer Archives

Medium: clay, fabric, mixed media

When Life Gives You Lemons 1/30, Grace Vibal

Gandy Dancer Archives

Medium: 10 layer screenprint

The Light Farm., John Wrestling Brewster Clay

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Light Farm is a creative examination of the convergence and divergence of truth and meaning, told in a collection of three short stories that both supplements, and is supplemented by a thesis exhibition of fine art. These stories are told using an episodic format that facilitates world building across time periods, while the sculptures, photographs, and text within the exhibition function as a physical entry point into a space in which the line between fact and fiction is tested. The impetus for this project was a lifelong interest in the disorderly confluence of corporatism, power, mortality, morality, human potential, …

Moments In The Making, Paige M. Harper

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

Gathering around a table with good company, sharing stories and food, creates lasting memories. These moments of warmth, laughter, and connection stay with us long after a meal is over. These experiences are the driving force that inspire the vessels | create. These vessels serve as conduits for connection, helping to shape and enhance the shared experience. These objects are not only individual pieces, but also components of broader compositions. I consider how they are related in space. Using repetition, contrast, proportion, and negative space, I strive to create cohesive visual experiences that invite curiosity.

Realm Bound, Kailee D. Bal

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Kailee Bal paints stills from branching video games narratives to explore the anxieties reflected in everyday decision making. She photographs her everyday life that mimics the aesthetics of video games that blur the line between the escape to virtual worlds combined with the escape found in the act of painting and taking photographs. These are usually moments in a game where the player must make a choice that determines the next objective.

Bal uses imagery from video games within the horror genre as the landscape to explore difficulties of anxiety and apprehension in daily life. Her subject matter focuses on …