This work is regarded as casting symbolic spells: spells for the health of degraded prairie remnants, the thriving of bats, fearlessness, romantic love. Spells are a call for transformation, and images of transformation occur throughout the work - snakes molting, mummies decaying, insects in metamorphosis.
Whether examining a construction site or the end of a relationship, the author is asking herself "when is change good and when is it catastrophic?"
Right now the author is looking closely at punk, witchy contemporary artists like Rosy Keyser, Maria Loboda, Marisa Merz, Victor Man, and Sterling Ruby. The author is also influenced by artists who smash a lot of pictures together, or have an overwhelming "Google Image Search" aesthetic like Isa Genzken, Anne de Vries, and Camille Henrot. At the same time, the author is drawn to old, mysterious, precious things (Viking runes, Taureg amulets, Hilma af Klint paintings, archaeological digs) and have an abiding love of altarpieces, medieval objects, Botticelli, and Van der Weyden.
Depictions of the Expulsion from the Garden serve as regular references. In them, the author finds an entwinement of her interest in ecological and romantic upheaval and a relationship to the body and touch that is both tender and precarious. The author wants to make the work that's about all the inexhaustible things: love, death, history, sex, mysticism, family, nature. It's not there yet, but she is working to make them happen.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uiowa.edu/oai:ir.uiowa.edu:etd-6526 |
| Date | 01 May 2016 |
| Creators | Steinkraus, Emma |
| Contributors | Farrin, Laurel |
| Publisher | University of Iowa |
| Source Sets | University of Iowa |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | Copyright 2016 Emma Steinkraus |
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