Browsing by Subject "Painting"

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
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    An Architectural Imaginary
    (2014-05-20) Shopoff, Marna; Horvath, Robert
    My work is a vehicle to investigate the perceptual intimacy I find within public spaces. Blending contemporary with classical approaches to art and spatial relationships, I use the idea of perception as a function of human experience, place and personal memory. I explore compositional, personal and experiential connections while creating an invitation for the viewer to do the same. A paradox exists within the material realm. I identify with who I am through the spaces I inhabit and feel as if my body can extend its presence into the built environment. My artwork becomes a lens that reveals the temporality of my experiences. Using architecture and abstraction as a philosophical approach in my paintings, architecture becomes both a visual bridge between inside and out, and a passageway of self-reflection. Abstraction is a way to move through a space. My work explores how art can become a space by its interaction with the environment and how the space can become the artwork. I conceptualize ideas relating to place identity and my lived experiences within the built environment. I view the world in a particular way because of the context in which I have experienced it: the architecture, spatial politics, personal relationships, public and private intimate spaces. I am interested in the interpretation of and the interactions with the spaces that surround me: what memories or feelings do these spaces spark and what sort of energy do they project? Likewise, I am interested in the roles that art plays in culture, architecture, and the site-specificity of spatial relationships that are formed by these interactions. My work explores whether, through art, we can share our individual perceptions, whether someone can access and experience a new view of the world through my artwork and how I can create a new space via my art.
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    Breaking Naming: The Multi-Valency of Being Human
    (2017) Eicher, Stefan; McDaniel, Craig
    Violence, whether physical or psychological, is sustained by the act of 'naming' -- placing people into categories of 'the other' based on a singular difference in socio-economic, ethnic, cultural, or religious identity. Art by its very nature works best when it succeeds in breaking the categories of certainty inherent in naming, disabling the mastery of language and optical assumptions the viewer brings with them to the work. My work seeks to break the 'violence of naming' -- transforming depictions and objects of violence by undermining the ability to fit them easily into pre-existing visual categories. Through the creation of dislocating juxtapositions, visual layering, and the deployment of surrealism my work seeks to change the meaning and substance of oppositional relationships and objects of violence, and in the process explores the multi-valency of human identity and connections between people. At a secondary level, within the context of war, and specifically Western interventions in the Middle-East and Central Asia, my work is also a critique of imperialism and power. "Breaking Naming: The Multi-Valency of Being Human" consists of three large-scale oil & acrylic paintings and two smaller sculptural/interactive installations which collectively serve as my Thesis Exhibition. In the course of this thesis paper I explore my strategies for 'breaking naming' by using specific descriptions of the works as launching points for formal, thematic, and conceptual discussions of the works. In the process I also draw on examples from my research and close with an exploration of the theoretical and metaphysical framework for the pieces.
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    Common Ground
    (2018) Vidger, Natasha; Potter, William
    Through large-scale oil paintings my research engulfs the viewer in an environment consisting of only animals. Absent of romanticized landscapes, my paintings render the animal form in a balance between the refined and unrefined. This represents the fracturing of animal populations and the surreal and sometimes isolated environments animals are forced to navigate during the Anthropocene, or the geological age dominated by human activity. The Anthropocene is continually moving towards human-centric ideologies. These ideologies manifest in Speciesist perceptions. Speciesism and anthropocentrism represent a bias that certain species, particularly humans, are superior to other life forms. They represent humankind's ignorance to recognize any likeness we share with animals. I believe by exploring the common themes of all life such as, reproduction, migration, and survival, and shared environment we can start to question and ultimately dissolve the human focused hierarchy and coexist with all living creatures in symbiosis.
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    drift
    (2016) Wittman, Priya; Winship, Andrew
    Through making, observing and responding to my art I maintain a constant cycle of question development and exploration of the infinite answers to these questions. The most important questions concern human existence: Where does a person begin, and where do they end? When do I occur, and when do I stop occurring? What makes existence meaningful or meaningless? The processes of making, observing, and thinking about art provide me with a flexible framework in which I can conduct investigations into these questions.
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    Let's Plan Our Escape
    (2010-05) Mason, Jill Marie; Winship, Andrew; McDaniel, Craig; Jamie, Pawlus
    I have one sister, Jenny, and most of our childhood was spent living in the country. With few other peers nearby to play with, we were best friends. Over time, we grew to be a very imaginative duo. I have many memories of playing pretend. It started early on. My earliest recollection of this activity is a happy one that is most likely triggered by a photograph of Jenny and myself. We are standing in front of the fireplace. Jennyʼs arm is around my shoulder and mine is around her back. We are both smiling. The photograph provides a three quarter view. We are each wearing a ruffled bonnet. Under Jennyʼs is a red yarn wig. The bonnets are tightly tied around our chins. Our faces are decorated with exaggerated freckles in a classic three points in a triangle fashion. We are wearing red, long sleeved frocks overlaid with white jumpers that have green diamond appliqués around the waist. Underneath these rompers we are sporting white knickers. Some may think that we are supposed to be Raggedy Ann, but those in the know (people, especially women, born in the mid 70s to early 80s) would recognize the garb as belonging to Strawberry Shortcake. Our mom fashioned these costumes for us on her sewing machine. She always nurtured and fostered our desire to pretend to be other characters or people and the creativity that came out of it.
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    My Question
    (2015) Marcial, Andrés; McDaniel, Craig
    A cage made out of words sets an unreachable distance made out of the void between you and me, even though your presence surrounds me all the time. What would an animal do in this condition? Be in a continuous state of alertness, observe a smile and the presence of death. Attack? Run? Bite? How would an animal feel in this condition? The proximity, a contraction, the necessity and the loneliness, wounded? Naked? Vulnerable? What would an animal see in this condition? The smell of sex, the lines, a violet shadow, distance? Identification? Copulation? I am that animal that smells the colors, I am that animal that fears death, I am that animal that wants to couple with its surroundings, that wants to possess and pair with what is desired. The possibility of losing speech, the possibility of losing the social role, there it is, potentially, living with me, as an animal that cannot explain himself and his existence.
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    The Spaceman's Manual
    (2016) Dick, Adam; Horvath, Robert
    My work playfully explores the notion of the hero and its modern relevance by presenting a "hero" that is imperfect in every way, even to the point of ineptitude. This character is The Lonely Spaceman, prone to loneliness (as his name hints at), foolhardiness, and basic human error. His entire universe, including his motivation to explore, lies within The Spaceman's Manual, a dogmatic text that prescribes impossible standards of behavior while promising the reader meaning and purpose.
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    TV Control
    (2017) Smith, Ryan; Farrow, Vance
    In my life, television has taken the on varying roles from teacher to entertainer, from salesman to charlatan, and though I have my issues with television, its presence has had such a profound impact on me, I find it difficult to imagine what life might be like or who I might be without it. Although television has been criticized as a problematic device which has a negative impact on society and its peoples, my thesis exhibition, TV Control, attempts to dereify the institution of television by taking over its medium, remodeling it and rethinking it in order to gain more transparency, greater control and a better understanding of television and our contemporary, media immersed world.