Art Theses and Dissertations
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Item The Folklore and Life of My Native Country in Pictorial Terms(1967) Al-Harithi, Naziha Rashid; Maril, Herman; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)The content of this thesis exhibition is involved in exploration of the folklore and life of the people of my native country in terms of a more contemporary painting language. Color symbols and patterns play a great role in these concepts.Item GEORGE WESLEY BELLOWS' WAR LITHOGRAPHS AND PAINTINGS OF 1918(1981-10-19) Wasserman, Krystyna; Johns, Elizabeth; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)This thesis analyzes the sources, subject matter and style of George Bellows' seventeen war lithographs, five paintings and five drawings of 1918. Evidence is advanced to prove that the political developments of the First World War were a decisive factor in the creation of the War Series by Bellows who otherwise had no interest in war themes. The development of Bellows' patriotic feelings, culminating in the creation of war lithographs as a response to the changes of United States policy from one of neutrality to one of full involvement in the European conflict and a state of war with Germany in April 1917, is traced in Bellows' art and political statements. For the purpose of analysis Bellows' lithographs and paintings are divided into: scenes of atrocities depicting crimes committed by the German Army in Belgium in August 1914 as described in the Bryce Report published in the New York Times on May 13, 1915; Bellows' illustrations for the war stories published in magazines in 1918; and scenes inspired by war events and war photographs. Thematic and stylistic comparisons with the works of old masters and contemporary European artists are made. The study concludes that Bellows' war lithographs and paintings are not evaluated by modern critics as enthusiastically as most of his other works. It is suggested that one of the reasons why this is so, is the fact that Bellows who painted usually scenes he had known and seen, never went to war, and thus had to rely on articles, correspondence or photographs rather than on personal observations to determine the subjects of his war lithographs and paintings.Item The Home We Can Never Leave(2023) Richardson-Deppe, Charlotte R; Keener, Cy; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Growing up, I performed aerial arts in a circus. In the circus, a web of interdependence keeps you off the ground—the tightness of your grip, the strength of your friend holding you up, the trust in an apparatus to hold your weight. In my own body now, I feel the residual stretch, tension, and ache the circus left in me—remnants of bodies pushing through pain, defying gravity to hold one another up. Via soft sculpture and performance, I negotiate the body as a site of both liberating autonomy and confining oppression.Item EVERY PLACE WE’VE BEEN(2023) Qiu, Elaine; Craig, Patrick; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Combining printmaking and painting, hovering between abstraction and representation, "Every Place We’ve Been" documents the disorienting experiences of the last years on both a collective and personal level. Using images culled from various archival sources, as well as personal snapshots, the installation examines how history becomes a collective embodied memory and draws attention to the boundaries between the personal and the public.Item Embrace the Wave(2023) Shahramipoor, Hosna; Strom, Justin; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Everything in the universe is made up of waves. "Embrace the Wave" is a journey of self-discovery, in which our own inner waves can resonate with and influence the world around us, dissipate, magnify, and transform.Item I HOLD YOU CLOSE(2023) Mercedes/Greene, Stephanie; Collis, Shannon; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)I Hold You Close articulates the precarious emotions of being queer in a society riddled by violence. Using steel, melted weapons, sound, and motors, this installation reflects on my own experience of queerness and queer love. Rather than framing vulnerability as a weakness, these works invite the viewer to consider vulnerability as a weapon.Item The Shipwreck Paintings of Joseph Vernet: An Iconographic Study(1975) Stevens, Adele de Werff; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)The theme of storm and shipwreck was a popular one in eighteenth-century literature, music, opera, and plays as well as in painting. Joseph Vernet (1714-1789) used this theme and became renowned for his paintings of tempest and shipwreck. For fifty-five years, Joseph Vernet's paintings of a coastal shipwreck attracted an international clientele. For them he depicted a vivid variety of clouds, turbulent seas, disabled ships, and the viscissitudes of the living and the dead. Trained by the followers of Pierre Puget in marine painting in Provence, Vernet had observed a tempest during his voyage from Marseille to Civitavecchia in 1734. For the figures in his paintings Vernet drew on the traditional motives of marine and Christian art. Other pictorial sources were the works of Salvator Rosa, Claude Gelee, Adam Elsheimer, and Tempesta, but his observation of nature and "on the spot" sketches were the basis of his paintings. A shipwreck scene often was one of the series of of the four times of day. Vernet's paintings in Italy mingled the post-shipwreck activities with other seaside pursuits in a spacious landscape. After his move to France in 1753, Vernet emphasized the rescue of people. Shipwrecked families were his contribution to the portrayal of drama in family life, which was an important current in art in the middle of the eighteenth century. During his last decade, Vernet's shipwreck scenes featured a closer connection among the persons depicted. He also showed a more compact, wellkept version of the edifice, which stands above the wrecked vessel. Throughout his career Vernet limited the violence in his shipwreck scenes to the forces of nature while portraying the noble behavior of ordinary people.Item THE UNCONVENTIONAL BALLET BODY IN THE 21ST CENTURY(2022) ROCHER BARNES, CAROLINE; PORTIER, KENDRA; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The Unconventional Ballet Body in the 21st Century represents the written portion of my thesis project in support of my dance choreography Bodily Intelligence, both requirements of the M.F.A. in Dance at the University of Maryland, College Park. Bodily Intelligence premiered on November 17th, 2022, at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center’s Dance Theatre. This research explores the impact of unconventionality of ballet in the 21st century and reveals how the search for the ideal body aesthetics has made it exclusive and disconnected from the current times. This paper highlights the influence of dance icons whose atypical aesthetics pushed the art form’s boundaries and contributed to its advancement towards a more inclusive world. It also examines the importance of racial diversity, inclusion, and gender non-conformism within the dance world and explores the impact of the corps de ballet in the current era. Moreover, the research describes how my choreographic influences and professional ballet experience feed into the creative process. It shines a light on my desire to work with a racially diverse cast with various dance training and highlights how their collaborative effort can redefine the future of ballet in the twenty-first century.Item Separately Together(2022) Katt, Elizabeth C; Strom, Justin D; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This body of work explores aspects of our Covid-19 experience for the past two plus years. The unknown quality of the virus in its beginning, people going alone to the hospital with no loved one by their side, unpredictable outcomes from infection, and preventable deaths enabled by incompetent leadership has become the subject matter I explore in my creative practice. Public health officials and healthcare professionals knew what to do but the effort was fragmented, confusing, and poorly led in the United States. The lack of coordinated response, the marginalization of public health officials, the inconsistent messaging, incorrect information, and the use of a public health crisis as a political tool were exasperating and disorienting. The exploitation, willful ignorance, or disregard that impacts people with less power and means make me want to scream.Item POST-TRAUMATIC GROWTH(2022) Imes, Alyssa Maria; Collis, Shannon; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Title of Thesis: POST-TRAUMATIC GROWTH Alyssa Imes, Master of Fine Arts 2022 Thesis directed by: Associate Professor Shannon Collis, Department of Art POST-TRAUMATIC GROWTH “Trauma ebbs and flows It is unstable and unknown A terrain of progress While you weep, Lean on your willows The only way to stabilize, ……is to lean” (Alyssa Imes)Item Momentary Transmission(2022) Gonzales, Martin; Sham, Foon; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The scope of this work seeks to make meaning out of things that cannot be understood. The following writing are momentary transmissions of streams of consciousness, life-long institutional reflections, and musings about this world.Item George Wesley Bellows' War Lithographs and Paintings of 1918(1981) Wasserman, Krystyna; Johns, Elizabeth; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)This thesis analyzes the sources, subject matter and style of George Bellows' seventeen war lithographs, five paintings and five drawings of 1918. Evidence is advanced to prove that the political developments of the First World War were a decisive factor in the creation of the War Series by Bellows who otherwise had no interest in war themes. The development of Bellows' patriotic feelings, culminating in the creation of war lithographs as a response to the changes of United States policy from one of neutrality to one of full involvement in the European conflict and a state of war with Germany in April 1917, is traced in Bellows' art and political statements. For the purpose of analysis Bellows' lithographs and paintings are divided into: scenes of atrocities depicting crimes committed by the German Army in Belgium in August 1914 as described in the Bryce Report published in the New York Times on May 13, 1915; Bellows' illustrations for the war stories published in magazines in 1918; and scenes inspired by war events and war photographs. Thematic and stylistic comparisons with the works of old masters and contemporary European artists are made. The study concludes that Bellows' war lithographs and paintings are not evaluated by modern critics as enthusiastically as most of his other works. It is suggested that one of the reasons why this is so, is the fact that Bellows who painted usually scenes he had known and seen, never went to war, and thus had to rely on articles, correspondence or photographs rather than on personal observations to determine the subjects of his war lithographs and paintings.Item SHOULDER DEEP(2021) Zenisek, Heidi; Collis, Shannon; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This body of work reexamining my relationship to home-past, present, and future- involves seeing beyond the untarnished façade of memory to the unflattering reality, whose rough edges have been smoothed. With the realization that home no longer feels like home and carrying with me the guilt of abandoning my family heritage, I’ve embarked on a search for a new place to dwell. To help with this, I’m creating an obscure pseudoscience to extract information from the land. Coaxing out those indescribable, nearly incomprehensible elements of a place, tapping into what we don’t know and can’t see to guide me towards home, wherever that may be.Item Decorative Specter(2021) McWilliams, Noah Leonard; Keener, Cy; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This exhibition reflects a tragic and anticlimactic future. The ultimate outcome of human exploration of the universe will no doubt shed light on the dismal nature of our interpersonal relationships and grand aspirations.Decorative Specter is an exhibition of sculpture and video that depicts a distant future inhabited by decorative artifacts of long extinct human civilizations. The works in this exhibition are speculative portraits of alien, but eerily familiar puppets. They represent moments within an implied overarching narrative, frozen for study and contemplation. My use of commonly overlooked aesthetics is intended to remind us that other intelligent life will likely spring from an unexpected place and with unexpected results. In the following text I will explain the formal qualities and concepts behind the work.Item OPERATOR ADVANCES INTO BRUSH AT FULL THROTTLE(2020) Kunkel, Jeremy Thomas; Sham, Foon; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)I am compelled by the underlying conflicts that feed conditions into the contemporary landscape. Conflicts stemming absurdities such as abuse and neglect by fostering a false sense of disconnect into the sedentary individual. Structures of power, progression and control are hegemony framed as ideology that demands a mass and momentum; Like sedatives, dulling cognizant intuition, codified rhetoric is seductively buried into objects, digital feeds, and other means. This pulls the individual away from the reality of the world, creating a false landscape and redesigning individual habitus to align with a given narrative, or purpose, outside of the self. As these conflicts evolve in broad strokes through society into conditions, I am compelled to look beneath the surface, distilling the foundational corruption that I perceive. My work collides with and disrupts this momentary intersection, where objects and other processes, imbued with the language of society, are apprehended by individual intuition.Item Wake Up, We're Not Asleep(2020) Robertson, Matthew Hunt; Richardson, William C; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Title of Thesis: WAKE UP, WE’RE NOT ASLEEP Matthew Hunt Robertson, Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art, 2020 Thesis Directed By: Department Chair W.C. Richardson, Department of Art Wake Up, We’re Not Asleep is an exhibition of painted images and installations that explore the nature of memory. The following is an explanation of the inspiration and creative process that produced the work, as well as a description of the pieces themselves.Item Mingling Echoes(2020) Koch, Lauren Grace; Craig, Patrick; Strom, Justin; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Mingling Echoes is an exhibition comprised of written word, alchemic reactions, found and repurposed objects, as well as sculptural forms of my own creation. All are abstractions from my subconscious, and they are blended with influential objects from my past in an intuitive manner. The following abstract gives a glimpse into my inspirations and personal experiences that have led to how I perceive memories are connected, intertwined, and ultimately, triggered. Additionally, I included two contemporary artists in whose work I find correlations with my own. The found and repurposed objects come from my personal collection that I have amassed over the past three decades from myriad places including my grand-parents’ property, gifts, flea markets, junk yards, antique/vintage shops, and roadsides.Item Entropic Construction(2020) Thron, Michael Richard; Shasn, Foon; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)ENTROPIC CONSTRUCTION Michael Richard Thron Master of Fine Arts 2020 Professor of Sculpture, Foon Sham, Department of Fine Art ABSTRACT “Entropic Construction,” is an exhibition of an installation at The University of Maryland College Park. In this written component to my Thesis, I address the combination of the theory of my creative practice, material research, object ontology, personal history, and inspirations for the exhibited work.Item Attend(2019) Isenberg, Monroe Joseph; Keener, Cy; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Is there a space between the animate and inanimate? Where is consciousness held? Exploration of these questions guides my practice and research. Art-making drives my effort to explore the intangible, mysterious place where matter and consciousness collide. My thesis work is an attempt to translate the inexplicable mystery encountered in this unseen space between— the moments that Martin Buber describes as the “I and Thou”— into elemental forms and installations. By investigating the invisible, I endeavor to make the unnoticed—visible and excavate the overwhelming connectedness that is present in this world. This Thesis is a reflection of the philosophy I have learned and artwork I have created to contemplate our connected reality.Item Alonso Berruguete: A Re-examination of the Polychrome Lunettes Adorning the Archbishop's Choir Stall in the Cathedral of Toledo(1976) Silberman, Karen Leslie; Lynch, James B.; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)The principle concerns of this study of the three Spanish lunettes are establishing Alonso Berruguete as their sole carver, the lunettes' iconography, and an exploration of their stylistic sources. That the lunettes are not workshop pieces is derived by studying Berruguete's documented works. When the lunettes are compared with them it can be seen that they share the unique carving techniques and peculiarities of one and the same artist. The study made here of the iconography of the lunettes examines their very individual interpretation of the themes of the Flood, the Brazen Serpent and the Last Judgement, by comparing them to scenes of the same subjects. The reasons for a new interpretation of the iconographic scheme the three works present are established. For reasons of style , influence from antique art are explored . The work of the Renaissance and other Mannerist artists which in terms of style, closely corresponds to Berruguete's lunettes are comparatively examined. The results of the research make for a re-evaluation of the lunettes and help to illuminate the figure of Alonso Berruguete.