Date of Award

5-2016

Document Type

Thesis

College

College of Visual and Performing Arts

Degree Program

Fine Arts

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts

Thesis Advisor

Shaun Cassidy

Committee Member

Tom Stanley

Committee Member

Alf Ward

Keywords

cubism, fragmentation, unmonumental, portraiture

Abstract

This thesis statement expounds on my thesis exhibition, a series of four sculptures that explore the contemporary expanding field of sculpture through the fusion of non-traditional or unmonumental materials with portrait painting and collage techniques. The works are built on questions of form, and references historical art movements: Renaissance and Baroque, Cubism, and Post- Modernism. The first is present in the classical portraiture I include in the pieces; the second, in the fragmented style; the third, in the multiple narrative voices of viewers, in the use of non-traditional or unmonumental materials, and in the unexpected groupings of objects, both made and found, often generating humor and absurdity.

My intention is to allow the viewers to engage in creating individual narratives through conceptual connections made from the fragmented imagery and the recycled and repurposed material and objects. The varied fragments, imagery, and objects are also to be seen as a collection of voices or points of view, not one individual voice, which constitutes an opportunity for the engaged viewer to become the “author” of the narrative. However, for this to happen, time becomes an essential element of the work. Taking recognizable and familiar imagery and composing it into an unfamiliar, absurd, or humorous arrangement intrigues the viewers and engages them to take the time to look at the work from different angles, as well as at the space between and within the sculptures. In this respect, the viewer’s movement through space becomes important too. Therefore, I create sculptures that invite this movement.

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