Exploring how the material environment affects human knowledge of the world is an ongoing investigation in my studio. With this tactile exploration I am also looking to discover how histories and cultures overlap constantly and in close proximity within my daily experience. By collaging natural fragments and cultural debris in my installations, I seek to exaggerate this overlap and create the dizzying feeling of moving through many places at once. Cultural and historical overlapping also occurs in the phenomena of erratic boulders, which refers to the depositing of boulders, rocks, sediments and other materials that receding glaciers leave behind. This phenomenon has the effect of spinning archeology and geology on their heads as large fragments of earth and cultural debris can be carried by glacier for hundreds of miles. This process exposes an intelligible yet chaotic cultural and geological sampling, and in this paper I will explore how this natural phenomenon parallels aspects of my MFA thesis installation.

The brain begins collecting and categorizing information from the moment we are born. It can identify patterns and direct our choices long before we are consciously aware of it. Even when we become aware of the deliberate choice we often don’t know why we are making it. It is striking how much of what we do is dictated subconsciously by our brains. While I am not a scientist and I don’t aim to research the brain, I think it is interesting to think about how this effects what I do in the studio. I am a product of the world I live in and my work is a product of me.

Looking closely at anonymous subjects in found photographs to jog collective memories and point at gestures, bodily traces of complexity, connectedness or just a quiet moment where nothing monumental is really happening; a pause for distance, a pause for discernment, there is no real difference between nothingness and spectacle.

Moms as historical perspectives, abstraction and image making; Through stoves, swimwear and carpets. Then, one hope- That one-day history will become yours and mine.

Using a diagram, glossary, anecdotes, and first-person narrative histories, I explain how I use sculptural installation, image making, and serendipity to exploit the illogical to the point of being meaningful.

PAINTING AS IN A JOURNEY The experiences, processes, and artistic influences are described in this paper supporting the student’s MFA painting exhibit. A variety of influences from Max Beckmann to Alice Neel, as well as the oil medium itself, helped build the collective knowledge that was used in the development of this student’s work.

What would a repositioned concept of environmentalism look like, one that is specifically determined by the geography and the human rights at stake within the environmental politics of a place? I am interested in determining how performative engagements act as an art form that counters dispossessing industrial, political and environmental regimes. Within this discussion of environmental dispossession I will discuss ways I have used drawing as a conceptual space to explore resistance, redefine cultural capital and challenge archeological structures of knowledge, through my presence and protest.

This essay is an attempt to describe my ideas about my work, my process, and my philosophy of art by examining five of the major pieces I created during the pursuit of a Master of Fine Arts degree at Virginia Commonwealth University. I will discuss the pieces in chronological order, first providing a description of the works’ salient characteristics, then delving into both my specific thoughts about the work as well as the background ideas that were pertinent to me during my process of creation.

This thesis explores my own work in the context of historical and contemporary representations of children. Because the child’s experience is essentially unknowable to the adult, issues of control that are always at play between photographer and subject are highlighted when an adult is the photographer and a child is the subject. This is evident when we examine and compare the photographs of children that have so far existed as well as the contexts in which they were made. While I believe that complete resolution of these issues is all but impossible, my work and research is motivated by a belief in the importance of asking the questions nonetheless.

My thesis work revolves around investigating painting’s relationship with “bad taste” and heroism. By comparing my paintings to illustrative depictions of “heroism”, artists who turn bad art good, ideas concerning modesty, humor, and invention I will contextualize my stance towards “heroism” and bad taste. By establishing my relationship to the aforementioned examples I will trace the growth of my work over the past few years and discuss how its role within contemporary painting has changed as well as how it interacts with various cultural references.