Browsing by Subject "Sculpture"

Now showing 1 - 10 of 25
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    Adaptability
    (2018) Fox, Hannah; Hudnall, Katie
    At the core of humanity is a driving force to create and change our environments to better suit our liking. In this century, the need fo hand-making in the developed world is becoming obsolete. As privileged Americans we no longer need to make utilitarian objects using these processes to stay warm or even to survive. Everything we "need" is mass produced in factories we will never visit, by machines most of us could not even begin to operate or comprehend. The most abundant of these commodities are made from plastic. An entirely unnatural and man-made material, plastic is used an discarded at a rate unmatched by almost any other substance. My thesis work utilizes recycled material, specifically polypropylene biohazard bags, to identify the destructive realities of human waste and consumption in contemporary society. By confronting viewers with grotesque overwhelming forms of melted plastic the work is a rumination on human adaptation to technologically-driven wasteful consumerist life in the 21st century.
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    Arsenal
    (2018) Carroll, Brenna; Jefferson, Corey; Baker, Lesley; Robertson, Jean
    Traumatic experience inspires the human drive for expression. Survivors carry the memory of trauma with them throughout their lives while they struggle to comprehend its impact. They maintain a fragile stability as their capacity to more forward is challenged and their perception of the world around them is altered. The force of memory compels those who have survived a traumatic event to build a defensive arsenal and to search for and to convey an understanding of their experience. My minimalist abstract ceramic sculpture examines the incidence of trauma and explores the transference of concepts and emotions associated with its effects.
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    Artifacts from the Anthropocene
    (2018) Spicuzza, Shelley; Hudnall, Katie
    My current body of work captures and displays a humanity manipulated geological history. I use and rework the discarded to build records of time, memory, and progress seen from the perspective of an uncertain future. By combining organic and synthetic materials I create moments fabricated in a modern dystopia. We enter the Anthropocene, the age of humans. Earth is ever-changing and, for the first time, one species is capable of leaving a worldwide impact.
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    Based on the State of Things in Nature
    (2011-05) Bord, Jason Dillon; Hull, Greg
    Throughout my life , my connection to art has been tied to a tradition of labor and to the natural environment. My attraction to the outdoors directly affects my material choices and the work I make. Through interacting closely with materials and environments, I am able to form an intimate relationship both conceptually and physically with the work. I am drawn to the tension that exists between intersections and boundaries such as those found in objects, environments and states of mind. Ultimately, these qualities provide me with the vehicle to communicate with the audience.
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    BLDG
    (2018) Boll, Greg; Hudnall, Katie; Furqueron, Reagan; Baker, Lesley
    BLDG is a concept - a group of parameters, which create an internal logic. It is a system, in the loosest sense of the word; it is just rigid enough to be productive, but open-ended and flexible enough that a variety of artistic responses and readings are possible. Drawing on numerous disciplines, both artistic and not, it establishes a framework for producing assemblages from a minimal palette of readymade construction materials. BLDG is momentarily self-contained and self-organized. But, references to the world outside itself keep the works from feelings insular and allow new connections to be made between its source disciplines. While markedly different in form, BLDG is the synthesis of ideas about process, space, material, structure, and the object, explored in the works preceding it. Though invested in the assemblages it produces, BLDG is far more interested in, and directed toward, the ideas which these constructions advance. To probe and develop these ideas further, it embraces the ephemeral; the objects created are temporary embodiments of the ideas it promotes. Their provisional nature expresses a position of between-ness. Between noun and verb, object and idea; not necessarily thing, yet not solely action. Between temporary and permanent, no longer physically present, but as an idea easily reconstructed; momentarily static, yet forever changing. Between disciplines - specifically architecture, construction, furniture, design, drawing, sculpture - pulling them into conversation with each other in new ways. Between simplicity and complexity, minimal in material, but maximal in action. Between direction and improvisation. Between stability and collapse, embracing a precariousness that produces uncertainty and unveils the process to the viewer. Between start and end, one part of an evolving continuum reconfiguring ideas from past works to test and develop for future works.
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    Borderline
    (2013-05) Cortez, Susana; Hull, Greg
    My work is a manifestation of emotions concerning personal, social, and political issues that influence the way I perceive life. I manifest my emotions towards these issues in a spontaneous way, through the exploration and interaction with different mediums. I often use temporary materials such as dirt, paper, plaster, and clay slip. These materials assist me in imprinting the work of my hands, the struggle, and the trace of my creative process.
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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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    Building a Universe Construction Series
    (2010) Tennant, Susan; McDaniel, Craig
    In his famous essay “On the Spiritual in Art,” Wassily Kandinsky, described art as a portrayal of spiritual values. He stated “All art builds from the spiritual and intellectual life. While each art form appears to be different externally, their internal properties serve the same inner purpose, of moving and refining the human soul.” [1] This belief in creating a dialogue between life and art that Kandinsky referred to is something I believe as well. The sculptures in this body of work Construction Series, re visualizations of this life-affirming philosophy.
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    Choosing Violence
    (2010-05) Sansone, Dominic Mario; Hull, Greg; Nordgulen, Eric; Kinsman, Patrick
    Through my current body of artwork I am venturing to give voice to the violence of humankind and the role each of us play in facilitating an endless cycle of barbarity. Much of the work is autobiographical, drawing heavily from my past and world-views. Jean Baudrillard writes, “The real victory of the simulators of war is to have drawn everyone into this rotten simulation” (253). My childhood was filled with playthings of a violent nature; toy guns, army men, tanks, and fighter jets. Fantasies of war were acted out with glee, as I pumped round after imaginary round from a plastic machine gun into unseen adversaries. As a young adult I became a part of the Military-Industrial Complex in the private sector where I spent two years working in the aerospace industry producing fabrication and assembly drawings for satellites, military aircraft, and mobile artillery units. Since becoming a father I have reflected on my own childhood and my past employment and come to realize the truth contained in the adage “history repeats itself”. Growing up in the 1980s I can recall a significant fear of the Soviet Union and nuclear obliteration at their hands, and now, thanks to the nightly news, my son may have radical Islamists and terrorists as the source for his nightmares. Always a new enemy, always some new evil to vanquish, war without end.
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    Empires of Rust
    (2018) Kochanowski, August; Hull, Greg; Nordgulen, Eric; Weintraub, Max
    My work is a reaction to the current movement away from traditional sculpture. In response, I have created a series of figurative sculptures that I placed on non-traditional pedestals. When I look at the art world, I see how contemporary sculpture has veered away from art on a pedestal in favor of performance, installation, and time-based sculpture. In my research, I examine systems of wealth and power. There are the haves and the have nots. It is obvious a small percentage of people control the world and we are all affected and the economic gap keeps widening every day. I see how power has been represented in art: Portraits are idealized, sculptures are made of refined and precious materials, and there is opulence in the presentation.