Passing Through, an installation of photography, encourages the nature of memory through an engagement with the materiality of photographic images. Considering memory as an ephemeral phenomenon, I am interested in exploring the emotional and psychological affects that images have on the body and mind. Strategies of collecting and tracing are employed as a means of forming connections between people, places, materials, objects, and images. Recounting personal history, storytelling and participating in the immediate present, I actively seek out images as a means for re-experiencing memory. Triggers reveal themselves during the collection and deconstruction of both personal and found photographic material. Re-assembling this information produces an archive consisting of real and re-imagined fragments of spaces and narratives. Together, these processes produce a body of work that considers the image as an experiential entity that is inherently memory based; triggering memory to create an emotive response in the viewer.

This thesis paper is the supporting document for an exhibition that was held at the University of Waterloo art Gallery. The show consisted of a series of large scale acrylic paintings on canvas. Through my paintings I deal with the current role that pattern, ornament and decoration play in our society today. My work is also concerned with the concept of the painting as a decorative object in and of itself. Our understanding of the terms ornament, embellishment and decoration have changed considerably throughout history, being defined and re-defined time and time again. Moreover, we have yet to come to a definitive explanation for the existence of ornament and decoration. The persistence of ornamental motifs throughout time, as well as their continued presence in contemporary visual culture, evidences the fact that this subject requires further investigation. As such, I have chosen to explore this through my paintings. I alter the palette, composition and medium of my source imagery in order to re-present these familiar motifs in a manner that encourages the viewer to regard them anew. In doing this, I explore ornament’s potential as a relevant visual language within contemporary western culture.

The work in this exhibition is the result of philosophical contemplation and the concepts that followed from these moments. The moment that we find ourselves conscious, the moment in which we inhale or exhale is the focus of this work. Through the materiality and physicality of paint, I explore this moment. Paint thus acts as a metaphor for my body, having set parameters that dictate its cause and effect. The very nature of painting; its essence, is the moment of state change from a fluid material to a solid state. I use the method of process and tools that I invent to help express these concerns of eternal recurrence. I make paintings that make space visible and invisible.

This thesis paper is the supporting document for an exhibition that was held at the University of Waterloo art Gallery. The show consisted of a series of large scale acrylic paintings on canvas. Through my paintings I deal with the current role that pattern, ornament and decoration play in our society today. My work is also concerned with the concept of the painting as a decorative object in and of itself. Our understanding of the terms ornament, embellishment and decoration have changed considerably throughout history, being defined and re-defined time and time again. Moreover, we have yet to come to a definitive explanation for the existence of ornament and decoration. The persistence of ornamental motifs throughout time, as well as their continued presence in contemporary visual culture, evidences the fact that this subject requires further investigation. As such, I have chosen to explore this through my paintings. I alter the palette, composition and medium of my source imagery in order to re-present these familiar motifs in a manner that encourages the viewer to regard them anew. In doing this, I explore ornament’s potential as a relevant visual language within contemporary western culture.

This paper is a reflection on my research into line in space, and how the contemporary Modernist white cube gallery operates as a inhabited space for this research.

My work is concerned with perception and presentness. Using digital video I am employing a notion of “perceptualism” put forward by artist Jack Chambers. Acknowledging HD television and high speed internet, this work challenges the pace and expectations of a contemporary screen event. It ranges in focus from the domestic to the rural, the intimate and sublime. These works, structured in various conceptual configurations of the 5 - 7 - 5 haiku poem, form an immersive gallery installation. Seventeen haiku videos in this series stretch a primary perceptual impact of various circumstances using superimpositions and quick edits in order to reconsider an immediate present and evoke a sense of wonder.

The work in this exhibition is the result of philosophical contemplation and the concepts that followed from these moments. The moment that we find ourselves conscious, the moment in which we inhale or exhale is the focus of this work. Through the materiality and physicality of paint, I explore this moment. Paint thus acts as a metaphor for my body, having set parameters that dictate its cause and effect. The very nature of painting; its essence, is the moment of state change from a fluid material to a solid state. I use the method of process and tools that I invent to help express these concerns of eternal recurrence. I make paintings that make space visible and invisible.

A Many Splendored Thing is a summation of my artistic production during my masters.

This paper is a reflection on my research into line in space, and how the contemporary Modernist white cube gallery operates as a inhabited space for this research.

My work is concerned with perception and presentness. Using digital video I am employing a notion of “perceptualism” put forward by artist Jack Chambers. Acknowledging HD television and high speed internet, this work challenges the pace and expectations of a contemporary screen event. It ranges in focus from the domestic to the rural, the intimate and sublime. These works, structured in various conceptual configurations of the 5 - 7 - 5 haiku poem, form an immersive gallery installation. Seventeen haiku videos in this series stretch a primary perceptual impact of various circumstances using superimpositions and quick edits in order to reconsider an immediate present and evoke a sense of wonder.