This thesis involves the study of four woodcuts from the twentieth century German Expressionist movement. The study of these woodcuts inspires and informs the translation of these artworks from two-dimensional works on paper to three-dimensional computer generated models. The goal of this thesis is to produce work that is derivative of the chosen woodcuts rather than create replicas of these artworks. The work undertaken utilizes Maya, a 3D software, and Mental Ray, a production quality rendering software. The final results are presented through stills, image sequences, and prints. The methods used to attain the goal of this thesis can provide a framework for artists who would like to achieve a similar woodcut look in their digital three-dimensional work.

This thesis involves the study of four woodcuts from the twentieth century German Expressionist movement. The study of these woodcuts inspires and informs the translation of these artworks from two-dimensional works on paper to three-dimensional computer generated models. The goal of this thesis is to produce work that is derivative of the chosen woodcuts rather than create replicas of these artworks. The work undertaken utilizes Maya, a 3D software, and Mental Ray, a production quality rendering software. The final results are presented through stills, image sequences, and prints. The methods used to attain the goal of this thesis can provide a framework for artists who would like to achieve a similar woodcut look in their digital three-dimensional work.

My art is about journeys, mapping, and layering. Two archetypal images in my work are the camel and the desert. Much of this imagery was inspired by my personal journey over the Sahara and into Western Africa. On another level, this journey connects to my metaphorical journey through life. As a printmaker, my art is very process oriented. Printmaking itself can be thought of as a kind of journey. My trip or the process is more important than the destination or the final result. Like the desert, my images are constantly shifting and transforming through the process of working. Printmaking with its alchemical overtones, layering, and unique surface qualities becomes a natural extension of my imagery.

This thesis examines four European portrait prints of Ottoman sultan Mehmed II, dated 1470 to 1493. At the center of this study is a formal and iconographical analysis that indicated all are rooted in traditional artistic conventions of both Western princely portraiture and stereotypical imagery of evil doers. Part of a feverish textual and visual discourse that was the result of great fear for the Ottoman aggression, they all adhere to a conventionalized type for the Eastern despot. The portraits employ to varying degrees a general pictorial language of evil, based on medieval folk imagery, that employed sartorial and physical signifiers used for a wide range of social groups that were not accepted by Christian society. The result is four images that share certain characteristics, most notably an iconic hat, but differ considerably in others to bring across diverging messages about the sultan's ambiguous public identity.

The thesis is made up of two parts - theoretical and practical one. The theoretical one deals with the creation of unique personality of Josef Váchal and in the historical context, evaluates how much his creative realization is connected with his philosophy and lifestyle. The most attention is paid to his creations with natural themes. The practical part is closely connected with the findings gathered in the theoretical part, based on which a collection of author's graphics was created. The collection is accompanied by an author's diary and a collection of photos. The whole thesis is completed by picture attachments to both theoretical and practical part.

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Os dois volumes que integram esta dissertação compreendem a produção visual realizada entre 2003 - 2008, e a implantação de um ateliê no centro histórico da cidade de Santos, no bairro do Valongo, a partir de 2007. Através de documentação fotográfica e anotações sobre o processo, o primeiro caderno constitui uma sucessão de ações relacionadas a ocupação do próprio ateliê e a produção neste lugar, tendo como foco o desenho, a xilogravura e a pintura. O segundo caderno apresenta uma seleção de trabalhos em pequenos e grandes formatos, dando ênfase a sobreposição de camadas de cor e possíveis aproximações entre a xilogravura e a pintura. / The two volumes of this dissertation comprise the authors artistic production from 2003 to 2008, as well as the implementation of an arts workshop in the historical downtown of the city of Santos, in the Valongo district, from 2007 onward. By means of photographic documentation and process notes, the first volume comprises a series of actions related to the setting up of the workshop itself and the artistic production which has taken place there, focusing on drawing, painting and woodcut. The second volume introduces a selection of works, in small and large formats, emphasizing color overlaying and the possible connections between woodcut and painting.

Os dois volumes que integram esta dissertação compreendem a produção visual realizada entre 2003 - 2008, e a implantação de um ateliê no centro histórico da cidade de Santos, no bairro do Valongo, a partir de 2007. Através de documentação fotográfica e anotações sobre o processo, o primeiro caderno constitui uma sucessão de ações relacionadas a ocupação do próprio ateliê e a produção neste lugar, tendo como foco o desenho, a xilogravura e a pintura. O segundo caderno apresenta uma seleção de trabalhos em pequenos e grandes formatos, dando ênfase a sobreposição de camadas de cor e possíveis aproximações entre a xilogravura e a pintura. / The two volumes of this dissertation comprise the authors artistic production from 2003 to 2008, as well as the implementation of an arts workshop in the historical downtown of the city of Santos, in the Valongo district, from 2007 onward. By means of photographic documentation and process notes, the first volume comprises a series of actions related to the setting up of the workshop itself and the artistic production which has taken place there, focusing on drawing, painting and woodcut. The second volume introduces a selection of works, in small and large formats, emphasizing color overlaying and the possible connections between woodcut and painting.

En 1918, Frans Masereel fait paraître à compte d’auteur 25 Images de la passion d’un homme. Si l’on trouve dès ce premier roman en images sans paroles composé de bois gravés les thèmes de prédilection de l’artiste belge – la ville dévoreuse d’hommes, la lutte des classes et l’incommunicabilité entre les deux sexes –, l’originalité du livre ne réside pas tant sur le fond – un idéaliste qui meurt pour ses idées – que sur sa forme : un récit en images sans légendes ni textes. Encouragé par l’accueil réservé à ce premier roman en images sans paroles, Masereel inaugure un cycle de livres en gravures sur bois remarquables par leur inventivité narrative et leur innovation plastique – de Mon Livre d’heures à Du Noir au blanc. Ces suites gravées d’un genre nouveau furent surtout remarquées en leur temps par les écrivains de la Mitteleuropa (Max Brod, Hermann Hesse, Stefan Zweig) qui voyaient en ces récits muets non seulement une œuvre novatrice, mais surtout une littérature sans verbe capable de traduire en images un monde à jamais marqué par la guerre. Bavard par nature, le roman chez Masereel ne s’embarrasse pas de la béquille d’un langage écrit, codifié, mais d’un langage universel reposant sur une succession d’images gravées dans le bois. Le récit masereelien ne nécessite donc pas les services d’un traducteur. Peintre de mœurs, son œuvre au noir stigmatise le capital et ses croupiers, la roue de l’infortune qui touche le prolétariat et cet instinct de mort qui conduira bientôt l’Europe vers le chaos. / In 1918, Frans Masereel got 25 Images de la passion d’un homme [25 Images of a Man’s Passion] published at his own expense. We recognise in this first wordless graphic novel made with woodcut prints the themes that were dear to the Belgian artist: the city that chews up men, class struggle, the impossibility of true communication between genders. But what makes the book original is not so much its substance – an idealist who gives up his life in the name of his ideas – as its form: a caption-free, text-free narrative. Masereel, invigorated by the positive reception of his first wordless graphic novel, started a series of books made out of wood engravings whose narrative creativity and formal audacity set them apart from the rest – from Mon Livre d’heures [My Book of Hours] to Du noir au blanc [From Black to White]. Those series of engravings of a new kind mostly drew the attention of Mitteleuropa writers then (Max Brod, Hermann Hesse, Stefan Zweig), who saw in those still narratives not only a ground-breaking work, but also a wordless literature that could translate into images a world that had been forever changed by the experience of the war. Masereel’s novel is chatty by nature, but it does away with the crutch of a written, codified language, and instead turns towards a universal language whose existence is defined by a series of pictures engraved in wood. His narrative does not require any kind of translation. Masereel is the painter of life; his black work stigmatises the capital and its agents, the cycle of misfortunes that the proletariat fell victim to, and the death instinct that was about to drag Europe into chaos.

The need and longing to connect to another is a fundamental desire of the human heart, enforcing a sense of movement toward social and personal security and, moreover, the future. Yet it is paradoxical that, where people are the most closely crowded together, feelings of alienation and loneliness are often the greatest. We live in times of busy isolation, on streets where we dont know our neighbours, in societies where our lives are lived behind closed doors. As the global village grows, our personal worlds shrink, both by circumstance and by choice. Our innate, gregarious nature faces its greatest challenge, or ultimate defeat.<p> The story of my hometown, New Waterford, is a substantial element in the story of my life as well as my art. The woodcuts and many of the paintings in the exhibition, Slag, are documentations of this place, its inhabitants and their way of life. It is a town with a unique character resulting from the circumstances surrounding its relationship to coalmininga town that is withering away now that the mines are gone. Other paintings in the exhibition depict people and spaces from other places that I have lived. Though the environments change, there are similarities in the pathos of the human subjects that remain constant. In my work, whether I am depicting the inhabitants of a hollowed out town or the solitary subway commuter, they are united as those things that have been lost or left behind in the name of progressthe leftovers and waste: the slag.