The Southern Predicament is an exhibition that explores aspects of self-awareness and identity in the modern south.

My paintings are a result of a mainly intuitive process that evolves out of the combination of shape, color, and texture and originates from personal ideologies involving health phobias and religious beliefs. The imagery in the paintings is of biological origin, cells that fill up with matter, dense spheres that recall cancerous build up, the compositions and colors are inspired by Italian Renaissance paintings. The tangible is inserted into the realm of the ethereal.

Among nineteenth-century books on Indonesia published in England, Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles "The History of Java" holds a unique position. While serving as Lieutenant Governor in Indonesia, Raffles went to great length in documenting the islands history, culture, architecture and contemporary civilization. His observations were published in a two-volume study entitled "The History of Java," whose most outstanding feature is the sixty-six engravings it includes. Ten of these engravings are colored aquatints by William Daniell, illustrating Javanese life and costume. Published in 1817, Raffles "History of Java" is considered, to the present day, a highly important work, particularly because of its perceived accuracy in documenting Javanese costume and ethnography at the turn of the nineteenth century. This thesis questions Raffles claim to accuracy based on arguments derived from the critical debate over Orientalism triggered by the publication of Edward Saids namesake book in 1978. While Raffles and Daniell purport to represent the people of Java as products of Javanese civilization, there is a clearly defined colonialist agenda looming behind the plates inserted in the "History of Java."

I create ceramic objects that are simple, geometrical and methodical. The design of these tile-like objects initiated from the idea of serving plates. Although the functional aspect of the work in this show has evolved into a tile piece, function is a part of tile. The series of each pattern was created by repetition and enlarging a small original unit that measured one inch by one inch. This repetition with small and simple units shaped by handmade templates created complex pieces. This coexistence of simplicity and complexity led me to a deep feeling of boundlessness on the tiles. The pattern was intensified by light and shadow, which created dynamic expressive qualities of the surface texture, which include matte, high gloss, opaque, and transparent.

The bronze statue known as the Antikythera Youth was discovered in numerous fragments by sponge divers in 1900 with the remains of an ancient shipwreck near the small island of Antikythera, south of the Peloponnesus of Greece. The divers, together with the Greek government, recovered the statue and the rest of the ships cargo. The statue was then taken to the National Archaeological Museum, where it was assembled and restored. In the 1950s, the statue underwent a second restoration. This thesis examines the condition of the statue after the restorations and the technique by which it was made. It also examines the stylistic features of the statue in relation to other Greek sculptures as well as its iconography and possible original context.

As government subsidies to art institutions continue to decline annually, the international art community finds itself increasingly dependent on alternate sources of revenue such as corporate sponsorships and private donations. The Louvre in Paris, for example, was forced to restructure their organization to become more involved in fund-raising and campaigning activities when the French government began cutting cultural spending in 1993. Currently, the United States government accounts for approximately 28% of a museums annual operational expenses. The remaining funds necessary to pursue acquisitions, sustain educational programs and promote scholarly research as well as to perform basic functions such as facility maintenance and staff support are left to the individual organization. Thomas Krens, the director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, proposes that the survival of the museum as a viable cultural institution into the twenty-first century is dependent upon that particular entitys level of participation in financial and economic trends. He pioneers a controversial style of museum management that includes the licensing and franchising of the Guggenheim identity in an attempt to maintain the basic museum mission of allowing the public access to experience art. This thesis identifies the Guggenheim museum under Krens as the first art organization to break with traditional modes of museum operation. It provides a context to discuss the relevancy of his tactics given the current financial dilemma of museums and explores the much-debated issues of public trust and globalization. Through a thorough examination of the aforementioned, this thesis isolates future trends in both the operations and the ethics of cultural institutions on a global scale.

Social Ape is an investigation and rationalization of Americas obsession with consumption. As a designer, this battle between consumption and individualistic expression has been intriguing. It is a platform for questioning how the public processes information supplied by marketing and advertising, resulting visually in interpretations of this information. It seems fascinating that even though consumers are constantly bombarded by persuasive propaganda, they feel in control of their purchasing decisions. To this end, I am using fashion as a tool for investigation. Fashion is a powerful commodity, representing identity and status, and thus fueling consumption and expression.

Seven miles from the Deben River in Suffolk, England, is a large pagan cemetery named Sutton Hoo, which consists of seventeen burial mounds. The most impressive of these mounds contains a ninety-foot Anglo-Saxon ship buried beneath the earth. Atop the ship is a burial chamber that contained artifacts such as: a helmet, sword, shield, scepter, standard and a purse holding thirty-seven Merovingian coins. This ship-burial has intrigued scholars since it was discovered and subsequently excavated in 1939. Dozens of theories still circulate on the burials intended purpose and date as well as whether or not there was an individual buried within, and if so, who. This thesis will discuss the royal artifacts found inside the burial chamber of the ship and conclude, based on historical writings and physical evidence, that a body was interred and will identify the deceased. By regarding the artifacts as regalia, objects associated with kingship, it can be established that the grave is that of a supreme ruler. The issue of who is venerated by the ship-burial can best be determined by the proper dating of the burial itself. The dates are largely dictated by the coins and have changed several times in the sixty years since their discovery. The year of c. 625 A.D. was finally agreed upon by experts at the British museum. The vacillation in the dating of the coins has led to various hypotheses as to who was memorialized by the elaborate ship-burial and why. In this paper, the various theories as to the occupant of the mound will be addressed and scrutinized. Based on the evidence presented, I will conclude that the burial did contain a body and it is that of the seventh-century king of East Anglia, Rædwald, who died in c. 625. The artifacts included in the ship-burial are some of the finest examples of Anglo-Saxon craftsmanship found in Britain. This single discovery changed not only Britains perception of their past, but the very definition of the dark ages.

In this thesis my goal is to paint a universe of my creation which is filled with clues that reveal the underlying relationships of things: spirals that ancient man carved in stone, sprouting fiddle ferns emerging from the earth, spinning particles in an atomic clocks, shells, heads of sunflowers, orbiting stars, swirling dervishes, dancing planets and tender tendrils reaching for the sun. As a working artist, keeping a journal helps me organize my thoughts. I have therefore chosen to present this narrative in journal form.

ON BEING THERE is the physical embodiment of an emotional experience. The works are responses to stories told and memories of my two grandfathers, being made of images from their possessions and sketchbooks. The object was to explore the experience of loss and to create a record of that experience. The work is an investigation of the self through the history of my grandfathers lives and experiences told in the media of printmaking.