My paintings are a combination of transparent images merged with paint and wax. As each piece of art develops, the process is the same. The beginning relies on memory or some connection to my past. Then, the progression evolves through a symbolic infancy with an emerging learning experience, which ultimately transforms into a creative piece, along the road less traveled…to the journey’s end. The transparency comes from the image transfer process, which produces a “ghostly” or antique image due to the deteriorated effect of the image in the transfer. The photographic transfers suggest the image without being so bold as to dominate the overall piece of artwork. The encaustic medium that I use to create the surfaces in my work allows me to explore the features of a sculptural medium. I am able to carve into, apply texture, and build up relief on the surface of each piece. The paint hidden in the crevices or layered on the surface adds emphasis and creates focal points in the painting.

It is my discovery of the mandala that has had the most significant influence on me as an artist. The mandala, Sanskrit word for circle or center, is found in a majority of my pieces, either literally or symbolically. My interest in and subsequent use of the mandala began twenty years ago and continues to this day. The mandala is a primordial image found in the macrocosm of the universe, the microcosm of nature, and in the psyche of man. The circle has been used throughout the world in image and architecture as a sacred symbol since the beginning of time.

The stenciled, sculpted, or painted word is a central motif in approximately thirty major paintings produced by Jasper Johns between 1955 and 1964. For Johns, who often recycles important ideas in his work, the written word is a key element that transcends other stylistic and iconographic transformations during this period. The words in Johns' paintings refer to the names of colors, label familiar objects or title his compositions. The written word appears in works by other artists prior to 1955, and therefore Johns' significance lies not so much in the establishment of a new aesthetic vocabulary, but in exploring ways that language works in the visual arts. Because Johns' use of word imagery from 1955-1964 is innovative and important, it is the purpose of this thesis to examine the different ways that Johns approaches the subject of language within the framework of painting.

My thesis exhibition entitled The Privilege of Being Solid is an exploration of the tension that is generated by our desire for an ultimate corporeal security and the realization that nothing is permanent. This tension expresses itself in the world in varying degrees through programs of repression oscillating with periods of chaos. <p>We live in a post-modern era of fragmentation and uncertainty, although modernist attitudes concerned with universals, certainties and a manic desire to control largely guide many of our institutions, political and otherwise. I believe that this desire to control creates cultural anxiety due to the virtual unattainability of certainty and control. This denial of our inherent insecurity, vulnerability and ultimate mortality generates a violence that feeds back into our collective anxiety. The loop perpetuates itself in a cycle of fear, denial and arrogance that fuels a raft of industries devoted to security, feeding off of our communal angst. The very human characteristic that has enabled these circumstances is the subject of this exhibition.<p>It is my intention to reflect some of the contradictions found in our current condition by generating a dialogue between fragility and strength; beauty and the abject; certainty and doubt; liquid and solid; as well as humor and emotional gravity. These contradictions extend to my material of choice as well. With the exception of a two channel video installation, all the works in the exhibition employ encaustic (wax) processes. Although wax appears to be solid, it is in fact classified as a liquid. It is always in flux and unless conditions are ideal, wax remains in a precariously unstable condition. It also reflects in its materiality, a sensuality that is of primary importance to me as an artist, both in terms of the processes in which I engage in my studio, as well as the objects I create for a potential viewer.<p>Through sculptural processes of casting, pouring and melting, encaustic mark making and digital manipulations of physical theater, I want to contrast the forces at work within our lives that seek to control our environment with notions of surrender to the natural state of impermanence in which we reside. I want to reflect the oscillation between the collective desire for security and the knowledge of our inherent fragility and vulnerability.

My thesis exhibition entitled The Privilege of Being Solid is an exploration of the tension that is generated by our desire for an ultimate corporeal security and the realization that nothing is permanent. This tension expresses itself in the world in varying degrees through programs of repression oscillating with periods of chaos. <p>We live in a post-modern era of fragmentation and uncertainty, although modernist attitudes concerned with universals, certainties and a manic desire to control largely guide many of our institutions, political and otherwise. I believe that this desire to control creates cultural anxiety due to the virtual unattainability of certainty and control. This denial of our inherent insecurity, vulnerability and ultimate mortality generates a violence that feeds back into our collective anxiety. The loop perpetuates itself in a cycle of fear, denial and arrogance that fuels a raft of industries devoted to security, feeding off of our communal angst. The very human characteristic that has enabled these circumstances is the subject of this exhibition.<p>It is my intention to reflect some of the contradictions found in our current condition by generating a dialogue between fragility and strength; beauty and the abject; certainty and doubt; liquid and solid; as well as humor and emotional gravity. These contradictions extend to my material of choice as well. With the exception of a two channel video installation, all the works in the exhibition employ encaustic (wax) processes. Although wax appears to be solid, it is in fact classified as a liquid. It is always in flux and unless conditions are ideal, wax remains in a precariously unstable condition. It also reflects in its materiality, a sensuality that is of primary importance to me as an artist, both in terms of the processes in which I engage in my studio, as well as the objects I create for a potential viewer.<p>Through sculptural processes of casting, pouring and melting, encaustic mark making and digital manipulations of physical theater, I want to contrast the forces at work within our lives that seek to control our environment with notions of surrender to the natural state of impermanence in which we reside. I want to reflect the oscillation between the collective desire for security and the knowledge of our inherent fragility and vulnerability.

The Master of Fine Arts exhibition, Undesirable Forms, presents a collection of paintings and sculptures that focus on the repulsion and discomfort a woman can experience within her mind and body. These works were exhibited at the Tipton gallery, in downtown Johnson City. The pieces included in this exhibition consist of encaustic paintings on panel, and sculptures created from plaster life-casts. The ideas discussed in this paper are influenced by Julia Kristeva and Sigmund Freud’s work relating to the abject/grotesque female body. This paper also discusses inspiration from other artists, such as Natalie Frank and Helen Chadwick, who work with psychological subject matter and the female body.

Over the years I have created many different images and explored a variety of media along my artistic journey. Similar images continue to occur in my work - images from my life as a child and as an adult in rural settings. I lived on a poultry farm and was involved in working with my parents there. When I married, my husband was a cattle farmer so I continued to live on a farm and use rural images in my work. Living in the country makes me constantly aware of the relationship between God, nature and man. I believe that we can find beauty in the most ordinary objects or places. My artwork is intended to help others find this beauty.

O objetivo deste trabalho é o de organizar, a partir de pinturas realizadas e comentários que as acompanham, uma reflexão que procure compreender alguns aspectos da materialidade associada à cor. O memorial é dividido nas seguintes partes: Alumínio, onde procuro comentar trabalhos mais recentes que foram desenvolvidos com novos materiais e Suportes, Óleo, Têmperas e Encáustica, que se referem a questões buscadas nas pinturas. No texto busco relatar algumas das questões envolvidas com o processo de criação da minha pintura: é uma escrita de artista que enfatiza questões decorrentes da prática. Este projeto se insere na área de concentração Poéticas Visuais, que permite ao artista dentro da universidade tomar sua própria atividade prática como objeto da sua reflexão. / The objective of this work is to organize, from paintings and comments that accompany them, a reflection that seeks to understand some aspects of materiality associated with the color. This memorial is divided into the following parts: Aluminum, where I try to comment more recent works that have been developed with new materials? Suports, Oil, Tempera and Encaustic, which refer to matters sought in the paintings. In the text part, I try to report some of the questions involved in the creation process of my painting. It´s an artist´s writing that emphasize the questions resulting from the practice. This project is inserted in the \"Visual Poetics\" program, that allows the artist take his own practical activity as a reflection object inside the university.

O objetivo deste trabalho é o de organizar, a partir de pinturas realizadas e comentários que as acompanham, uma reflexão que procure compreender alguns aspectos da materialidade associada à cor. O memorial é dividido nas seguintes partes: Alumínio, onde procuro comentar trabalhos mais recentes que foram desenvolvidos com novos materiais e Suportes, Óleo, Têmperas e Encáustica, que se referem a questões buscadas nas pinturas. No texto busco relatar algumas das questões envolvidas com o processo de criação da minha pintura: é uma escrita de artista que enfatiza questões decorrentes da prática. Este projeto se insere na área de concentração Poéticas Visuais, que permite ao artista dentro da universidade tomar sua própria atividade prática como objeto da sua reflexão. / The objective of this work is to organize, from paintings and comments that accompany them, a reflection that seeks to understand some aspects of materiality associated with the color. This memorial is divided into the following parts: Aluminum, where I try to comment more recent works that have been developed with new materials? Suports, Oil, Tempera and Encaustic, which refer to matters sought in the paintings. In the text part, I try to report some of the questions involved in the creation process of my painting. It´s an artist´s writing that emphasize the questions resulting from the practice. This project is inserted in the \"Visual Poetics\" program, that allows the artist take his own practical activity as a reflection object inside the university.

A presente pesquisa tem como objetivo investigar minha produção em pintura encáustica, com foco no processo de feitura. Inicialmente procuro abarcar os aspectos visíveis do trabalho, como as especificidades dessa técnica de pintura com cera de abelhas e sua utilização ao longo da história, com sucessivos períodos de esquecimento e redescoberta, desde a Grécia Antiga. Apresento um levantamento de suportes, ferramentas necessárias e receitas do medium, assim como das particularidades formais e construtivas de minha produção pictórica, como planos, camadas e brancos. O espaço é o ponto central manifesto no trabalho, que se desenvolve a partir do binômio espaço construído, espaço absoluto. São representados ambientes arquitetônicos, lugares ligados ao sistema das artes como museus e galerias, mas também montanhas e horizontes, esvaziados. Ao longo do processo de construção das pinturas de dimensões generosas, o espaço se manifesta não apenas na representação, como através do estado mental. São observados os meandros do espaço interno, que se mantém no presente ou divaga, enquanto o corpo vai erigindo o espaço pictórico. A Teoria dos Incorporais no Estoicismo Antigo de Émile Bréhier, dá suporte à exploração às camadas subjacentes desse processo, que abrange questões relativas ao vazio, ao lugar, ao tempo e a um aspecto de imanência, perceptível pelo exprimível. O corpo de trabalho, portanto, repousa parte no tangível, parte no sensível, que vão se alternando, se suturando ao longo do percurso. Por fim, a pintura não é apenas a matéria que se encerra nas duas dimensões do suporte, mas as possibilidades decorrentes da experiência contemplativa do fazer. / This present study aims to investigate my encaustic painting production, focusing on the making process. At first I try to encompass the visible aspects of the work, as the specificities of this technique of painting with beeswax, its use throughout history, with successive periods of neglect and rediscovery, since Ancient Greece. I introduce an inventory of substrates, tools and recipes as well as the formal and constructive features of my pictorial production, such as plans, and whites. Space is the central issue manifested in the work, which evolves from the binomial constructed space, absolute space. These are represented as architectural environments, especially places linked to the arts system, like museums and art galleries, but also mountains and horizons necessarily emptied. Throughout the construction process of the over sized paintings, space manifests itself not only through representation, as mental state. The intricacies of the mind space, which remains in the present or wanders, are observed while the body builds pictorial space. Émile Bréhier's The Theory of the Incorporeal in Ancient Stoicism, conceptually supports the underlying layers of this process, which covers issues relating to emptiness, place, time and the one aspect of immanence, perceptible by the expressible. Therefore, the body of work lies partially in the tangible, partially in the sensitive, which alternates as a suture along the route. Finally, the painting is not only the two dimensional substance, but the possibilities arising from the contemplative experience of workmanship.