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An analysis of the surface of my paintings through Jean Baudrillard’s notion of seduction and the cool mechanism of the airbrush. I further investigate my work through the metaphor of the black mirror also known as a Claude Mirror and the connections between my work, Claude Lorrain’s landscape painting and divination through the use of reflective surfaces known as catopotromancy. Considering the notion of assemblage as outlined by Gilles Deleuze and Bruno Latour’s Action Network Theory I attempt to navigate the part/whole relationships found in painting, and in society.

How can we know something through how it is sensed? Making anthropomorphic, three-dimensional paintings through a set of basic, at-hand materials, I’m interested in how empathy, modesty, and doubt can mediate a tangible experience of an object. Challenging notions of perception, I want to create a heightened sense of awareness in which the intangible can be seen or felt.

This thesis and accompanying exhibit, Untitled [Distance Moving Through Me: Giselle and Marco] explores contemporary issues of displacement and our relationship to the site of home. Through the trope of a pilgrimage in the desert, both virtual and in person, inspired by the eviction and imprisonment of my paternal family from Egypt in 1956, Distance Moving Through Me: Working in Exile asks how we can use our virtual experience and changing perspectives of the landscape to our advantage for a more empathic world.

My work deals with the connection between the act of representation and conceptions of truth in the contemporary image-mediated social environment. This thesis details elements of my paintings in exchange with methods and ideas from artists and writers in order to position my aesthetic and conceptual sensibilities within a historical and contemporary framework.

We are hosts, we are hosts and we’re deeply aware of it. We are aware of the pollutants and particulates that exist in our air, aware of the growing presence of UVB radiation that touches our skin, aware of the microbes, bacteria and viruses that call our interiors home, more completely aware than we’ve ever been that to have a body contemporarily is to acknowledge a multiplicity that can be wholly uncomfortable and even alien: that we are hosts to so much seemingly unwanted material, sensation and life.

My work focuses on the reality and life of mental objects. The unseen masquerade as the seen, not only in our mind's eye but as an immediate visual experience. To realize this I apply volumetric form to models of thought and present them in a variety of environments. The forms are derived from the fields of science and mathematics, specifically geometry and topology. Topology or "rubber-sheet geometry," is the study of shapes whose essential attributes are unchanged by continuous deformation. The shapes are not defined by measurements of distance and angle, but by whether they can be transformed when bent, stretched, or shrunk. For these shapes I assemble environments which include architecture and devices from Italian Renaissance painting. In constructing the compositions I use an underlying geometric framework. The impetus for this device is that all things are hung on a structure of some sort, whether it be paint or metaphor. This device is also connected to Renaissance ideas of proving the divine through the employment of mathematics, or rather, using the tools of the exact sciences as a way of proving the unprovable. I see these arrangements as exemplifying a Metaphysics of Beauty in which the Platonic world of scientific and mathematical objects is filtered through aesthetics in what I have termed Calliphysics. Kale, from the Greek, meaning beautiful.

My thesis describes the technical processes involved in producing my work. Illustrations and diagrams complement the manuscript. The sculpture is represented by photographs. I do not intend to verbally describe what each sculpture attempts to project for itself. I have done and will continue to do sculpture because it makes more sense to me than anything else, including writing about what I have made. The investigation, planning, creating, and presentation of my work manifests itself in the object. I would, therefore, undercut this intent if I attempted to duplicate my sculpture rhetorically. The works discussed were shown at three locations: Fayerweather Gallery, November 7 to November 23 at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville; Healy Gallery, January 29 to February 11 at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.; Salve-Regina Building, February 14 to March 3 at Catholic University in Washington D.C. All concerned faculty, friends, and benefactors were mailed reception invitations. The description of each piece follows in the order each was completed.

In my mixed media pieces and sculptural books, I explore the significance of place. Place is not just a geographical location; it is a layered history that tells a story. My experiences in a specific environment and how I relate to it, study it, remember it, or imagine it drive me to create pieces. While the choices I make are influenced by my own experiences, I want to evoke feelings of familiarity, intrigue, and a sense of nostalgia. In my process, I intuitively layer paint, printed materials, and mixed media to make a foundation for exploration. I continue to experiment by applying more paint and developing layers of media and marks. I cut away, add to, and rework areas in an effort to build a reflection and sense of place. The process itself is as important as the outcome. The stratum of layers reveals the growth and evolution of a work and in turn discloses its own history.

The St. Clare Altarpiece is the earliest extant double transformation altar with both reliquary busts and a tabernacle from the fourteenth century. Created in Cologne it is a work of rich stylistic and iconographic complexities. Parts of the altar's paintings may be seen as the culmination of a style prevalent during the second quarter of the fourteenth century in Cologne while other parts may be seen as the gestation of the early fifteenth century "Soft Style." The altarpiece was examined near the end of its present restoration and previous hypotheses concerning the style, iconography, original location, and donors are re-evaluated and more adequate re-interpretations suggested. / Nineteenth and twentieth century restorations and fifteenth century overpainting have resulted in confusion concerning the altar's style and have led in the past to contradictory evaluations. As a result, the present chronology of most fourteenth century Cologne painting, which was based on attempted stylistic associations with the St. Clare Altarpiece, has been grounded on the slimmest evidence. In particular, this investigation shows that the interest in finding an artist(s) for the altarpiece has lead to inconclusive results, especially when attempts were made to associate the altar either with William of Herle or Herman Wynrich of Wesel. / Iconographically, no serious investigations have been undertaken previously to explain each opening of the altarpiece and indicate their inter-relationships. Although certain scenes have been extrapolated from the altar and used as illustrations for discussions of a particular iconographic theme, these discussions were tangential and often flawed methodologically. Earlier suggestions of the altarpiece's relationship to Rhenish mysticism are refuted in terms of origin, style, iconography, and function. / Two new iconographic interpretations are developed. First, the probability of a carved Crucifixion in the central upper niche of the second opening is suggested. Second, the scene on the first opening referred to in most accounts as the Return from Egypt is reidentified as the Journey to the Temple. In addition, it is argued that relationships may exist between the different openings. The program seems to reflect a carefully established theological program emphasizing allegorical and/or tropological meanings that had a long tradition in medieval textual exegesis. / The altarpiece appears to be related to the fourteenth century Franciscan convent of St. Clare's by the Roman Tower in Cologne. An argument is made that the hypothesized relationship of the Guelders sisters to the altar is suspect and that a strong possibility exists that the entire convent commissioned the altarpiece. / After a careful perusal of the stylistic, iconographic, and historical elements associated with the St. Clare Altarpiece, this investigation has concluded that the best range of dates for the earlier painting can be established from around 1347 to around 1390, with the greater possibility focussing on a period shortly after the dedication of the new church of St. Clare in 1347. The later overpainting occurred during the earliest phase of the Soft Style in Cologne around 1400. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-01, Section: A, page: 0006. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1980.