TAMU-CC Theses, Dissertations, and Other Projects
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Find theses, dissertations, and other projects completed by students of Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. Associated files for theses, dissertations, and other projects, such as data sets and Honors Projects of Excellence, can also be found within this community.
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Browsing TAMU-CC Theses, Dissertations, and Other Projects by Department "Art & Design"
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Item Aqui is anywhere we choose to call home(2022-05) Negreros, Jacqueline; O'Malley, Ryan; Katz, Louis; Aubrey, Meg; Peña, Joe; Hinojosa, YndalecioJacqueline Negreros draws upon her parents’ experience as immigrants in Aquí Is Anywhere We Choose to Call Home to highlight themes of tradition, immigration, and assimilation conveyed through memories shared by the artist and her family. She uses food as a metaphorical device to probe cultural attitudes of authenticity and otherness through ingredients that remain traditional and those that have grown with her. Aquí centers around the communal preparation of barbacoa de pozo – from its roots in her parents’ village of Zacapala, Puebla, Mexico to its evolution into barbacoa al vapor, using a steam pot, adapted from her family’s life in the United States. Through printmaking and sculpture, Negreros explores the duality immigrants contend with after leaving their homeland for a new nation and how customs can evolve across generations. Rice embossed paper depicts objects fundamental to the preparation of this meal and signifies cultural and familial traditions. Veils sewn from guaje seed pods and arranged carizzo stalks are relics from the landscape of Zacapala. Collected around Corpus Christi and considered invasive, they form a border between belonging and otherness. El pozo in the middle of the gallery is the portal by which everything enters or emerges, a point of origin. Comprised of dirt from the Texas Mexico border and sand from the beach at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, El pozo merges physical spaces from the past and present for experiences to coexist. La Pancita signifies matriarchal bonds and the importance of ritual. The installation and preparation of this meal create an intimate view into the artist’s use of food to traverse time, and this supporting paper serves as an archive of her family history and this important recipe.Item The Cabinet of Renwick Ambrose Matheton(2017-08) Murdoch, Andrew; O'Malley, Ryan; Gron, Jack; Katz, LouisThis display represents all items archived (to date) in the collection of the late Renwick Ambrose Matheton. A known eccentric and occult enthusiast, Matheton spent his lifetime procuring and cataloging artifacts pertaining to a previously undiscovered civilization - one that seemingly pre-dates the continental schism of Pangaea. Through research, speculation, and the aid of Matheton's coded and cryptic notes, these objects have been identified and categorized to compile this exhibition. Finding the connections between these artifacts became the force driving his every waking moment, some say driving him to madness. Many of the ephemera included in this exhibition are works of his own, attempts to recreate the technologies of these ancients. But was it madness? With continued analysis of these objects a simple fact becomes increasingly apparent - something sinister lurks in the ancient origins of these artifacts. The further I delve into this research, the more I am beginning to see these connections. For what purpose were these objects destined before they entered Matheton's collection? What connection, if any, exists between these artifacts and Matheton's disappearance? Ominous warnings aside, please enjoy the assembled ephemera from the collection of Renwick Matheton. Drawing ones own connections is encouraged, but not recommended. Feel free to share your findings.Item Comedy of Purposes(2017-05) Roeder, Larson; O'Malley, Ryan; Katz, Louis; Peña, JoeIn March of 2016, Lars Roeder began a series of performances and interactive installations that were designed to engage viewers as participants in each artistic experience. They have taken the forms of food carts, voting booths, books and vending machines, connecting themes of convenience, commodity, agency and identity with the public. Each work was created to interact with the audience, often times involving a piece of the work given away as a memento of that experience. In contemporary theory, artworks are defined by aesthetic interaction. Both the art and the viewer bring a unique set of circumstances that determine the outcomes of their mutual experience. Retaining these experiences on the part of the viewer is what connects the art to the whole of society. The accumulation of these performances was the exhibition, Comedy of Purposes, at the Islander Art Gallery in Corpus Christi, Texas. From April 7th to the 15th, 2017, the performances were presented, along with documentation and artifacts, to revisit the works of the previous year and reinterpret them beyond their original context. Amongst one another, the pieces established strong visual and aesthetic relationships. Their reflections as a group embraced the complexities of desire and value in art. The final exhibition became a performance in itself, with many moving parts to parody the idea of exhibiting events that have already happened. Yet, this process furthered the reach of the work, inscribing it with a whole new context beyond its original purpose. These intended functions critique the viewer’s perspective to clarify the relationship between art and life.Item The Fruits(2021-12) Villarreal, Carlos; O'Malley, Ryan; Katz, Louis; Gurney, David; Duttweiler, JoshThe Fruits investigates the intimate space of a South Texas minority family’s life within the context of this current American moment. In this series of images, Villarreal utilizes the space between cinematic and documentary photography to challenge notions of race, privilege, and power. Through autobiography, symbolism, lighting, staging, performance, and documentation he subtly reveals tensions inherent in the complex condition of the Latinx experience.Item Hausfrau collections: Routine, ritual, & magic(2020-12) Speck, Jamie M.; Aubrey, Margaret; Petican, Laura; O'Malley, Ryan; Bajuyo, LeticiaAs a person who fills many roles—housewife, parent, artist—my work is suffuse with everyday monotonous routines. I celebrate notions of domesticity by turning the ordinary into the fantastical, routine into ritual. Instead of relying on traditional art materials for this body of work, I construct autobiographical assemblages—my Hausfrau Collections—objects and household waste garnered through quotidian routine. I collect and reimagine unremarkable artifacts through the restorative healing power of ritual, along with childhood notions of fantasy and magic. Textile-like artworks metamorphose from consumer waste into fairy tale and mythical-type garments and backdrops. Hausfrau Collections confronts outdated stereotypes to foment self-discovery and personal contentment through imagination and storytelling. Using Nelson Goodman’s Ways of Worldmaking (1978), I discern my artwork and the way I interact with reality through individual perspective. My additional desire is that these artistic reparations and invented textiles influence more responsible ecological artmaking practices and contribute to a healthier environment on this planet. Reconsidering traditional housewife and family-based routines and rituals creates a spiritual and visual imaginative escape for self-reflection and discovery, and to conjure the magical from the mundane.Item The Holding Cell(2023-05) Hinkel, Olivia Ann; O'Malley, Ryan; Durham, Jonathan; Hill, David; White, CassieThe Holding Cell is an experiential space composed of color-shifting lightboxes, ceiling-high isolation chambers, and meditative woodblock prints. The design of the space encourages viewers to linger. In this paper, a mixture of research and storytelling is employed to explore notions of containment, community, and belonging. Language and metaphor are borrowed from cell biology, systems thinking, and graph theory, with emphasis placed on notions of connection and interdependence. These fields supply a wealth of knowledge that can be easily abstracted into personal relevance. The narratives, predominantly from the artist’s childhood, draw from poignant experiences and follow them, thread-like, as they are woven throughout her life and into her work. The Holding Cell is the culmination of this research and self-reflection to date.Item Lenguaje vulgar(2017-05) Flores, Javier; O'Malley, Ryan; Peña, Joe; Mercer, KevinAs an art form, tattoo flash is traditionally comprised of generic illustrations for walk-in customers, but is also graphic imagery easily accessible to the artist, collector, and admirer. People’s choices of flash from a parlor’s walls generally hold specific symbolic representation, and in relation to other tattooed works on the body, begin to create personal narrative. This work expresses the tragedy of my paralysis at the age of nineteen due to a gunshot wound, and the trials, tribulations, and triumph that followed. These works convey the emotions I encountered when confronting my paralysis, and the overwhelming pitfall of depression, hatred, and shame I had to overcome in response to a reckless act of violence. While these realities linger deeper than any physical scar, I have found healing through family and friends, martial arts, and visual arts. Through arrangements of graphic objects depicting my cultural heritage, aesthetic interests, and personal influences, the public bears witness to representations they can recognize, and begin to complete the narrative. Despite the personal nature of the compositions, the individual elements, as with flash, become desirable images independently associated to the individual. This collective contract between imagery and viewer, along with the help of decoders emphasize the use of symbols in a contemporary visual language.Item Little worlds(2017-12) Malczewski, Andrew; Reuter, Greg; Katz, Louis; Peña, JoeI have always been immersed in stories of fantasy, especially the works of J.R.R. Tolkien including The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings which were some of the first novels I read. I embraced them and they led me to become very familiar with that genre. In my search for personal expression I find myself once again being drawn to the works of Tolkien. In a 1939 lecture entitled On Fairy-Stories, he discussed fantasy and fairy tales providing validations for the importance of the fantasy genre. He also identified three values required for Fantasy: Recovery, Escape, and Consolation. He defined these in a literary convention. I am translating them into a visual one. This paper discusses how I came to the decision to synthesize the literary convention of Fantasy with the Visual arts. It posits how experience is an essential part of this synthesis. How the replacement of a monetary value with the value of a gift allows the experience to transcend from the exhibition space to the home. It discusses the importance I place on the atypical viewer of fine arts and why I made this body of work specifically for them. This paper discusses how I used the formal elements of design to create an aesthetically pleasing sculpture that continually reinforces the conceptual basis of fantasy as a visual art and how it works together to create a new and engaging environment; a microcosm of a second world where the mind can wander. It is how I combine my two intense interests – fantasy art in concept and fine art in construction.Item Manic Architectonics(6/9/2013) Stoddart, Sebastian J.; Gron, JackIn the written thesis that follows, Sebastian J. Stoddart explains the theory behind Manic Architectonics and its involvement in the creation of his body of work. Explanation of ties linking psychological study to aesthetic properties and emotive qualities secures the foundation from which work may be born. As the title suggests, the synthesis is composed of expressions of perpetually obsessive psychophysiological scrutiny based on architecturally derived imagery, manifestation represented by individual case studies. Through providing the audience with these samples, the artist invites inspection and reflection concentrating on the emotional essence imbedded in the work.Item Micro to macro(2017-08) Scannell, Nicole; Gron, Jack; Reuter, Gregory; Katz, LouisColor, texture, form and time. All of these elements of design are found throughout nature. We’re surrounded by them as they appear in all things. My thesis seeks out perfection, but also recognizes and appreciates and anomalies of shape, texture and form. I’ve drawn my inspiration through the contemplation of everyday objects and landscapes, from the mundane to the other worldly. These abstract forms translate the dangerous, transforming the dangerous, ugly and repulsive into something truly beautiful.Item Mythossippi: The Call to Adventure(2017-05) Turner, William Ross; O'Malley, Ryan; Gron, Jack; Mercer, KevinMythossippi: The Call to Adventure is largely inspired by the rich tradition of folklore in the American South, where narration still holds strong social significance and is implemented to convey values, bring people together, and imbue life with art. Qualities of Old World folktales, such as the hero’s journey, enchanted objects, and terrifying creatures are still utilized in storytelling throughout. Paying homage to this age-old tradition, Turner invites the viewer to explore Mythossippi — a fictional locale fabricated from a light-hearted critique of the contemporary American South using traditional folklore and personal narratives to weave a humorous tall tale. This work creates an environmental installation utilizing a combination of sculptural forms, printmaking techniques, found objects, sound, smell, and light where the viewer can suspend disbelief and allow themselves to surrender to the whimsical, the comedic, the ominous, and the foreboding.Item Not for Medical Use(2017-05) Howard, Emily; Katz, Louis; Petican, Laura; Gron, JackThroughout the history of art, artists have always sought to find ways to recreate the human form in its most perfect representation. They have studied the weight and movement of the body inside and out to show the ideal figure in its totality, which has aided in the progress of medical science. This is in the pursuit of representing beauty and has led to the human figure being idealized on the surface without embracing imperfections. This does not leave room for the exploration of representing the imperfect or ill body according to social standards. One in three hundred Americans is diagnosed with a condition called postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome and eighty percent of those are women. Changing the perception of chronic illness or disabilities can be achieved through the research of in disabilities studies and artists’s representations of the disabled form in different art mediums. Specific Copious research about differential treatment by gender and accounts of gender bias in the medical arts informs a feminist message perspective in this research. Artists should actively be seeking a way to bridge the gap between art and scientific. This body of work seeks to represent the human figure in its imperfections and bring awareness to the hidden illnesses that affect a persons’s body that make it different and create ancontribute to individuality. Modern Contemporary artists such as Marc Quinn, Diane Arbus, Kiki Smith and others have depicted their own struggles and familiarities with health issues, medical experiences, gender bias and even how ways in which the female form is depicted in art. By using studies of art history in its the medical context, its role in representing and shaping societies’ viewsocietal views of the human figure, and how it has affected the view point of modern and contemporary artists, this body of work will bring attention to unseen illnesses and the acceptance of the imperfections of the human form. Further research and representation through personal experiences may can broaden the progress scope of this field of study.Item Palimpsest(2020-12) Gonzalez, Clarissa; O'Malley, Ryan; Aubrey, Margaret; Roeder, LarsonPalimpsest is an exhibition of large drawings, artists books, and monotypes which considers the social influences of colonialism, geographic bias, authority, and nationalism amongst shifting global cultures. It is abstract cartography with a primary focus on the physical world map as an imperfect object with emphasis on how and why they were made, and the intentions of those who created them. The works in this exhibition utilize printmaking processes to create unconventional representations of global bodies and aesthetically claim agency over the fallible nature of maps. This supporting paper will illuminate the vacillating aspects of map history and usage through themes of material culture, simultaneous time and nationalism. Further, geological change, geopolitical perspectives, and my personal history will explain why I subvert these notions through abstraction in attempt to unite the personal geographies of the viewer to the broader world. The works display simultaneity of space and time while dissolving concepts of national identity, borders or boundaries to illuminate a need for better understanding across cultures.Item Positive Disintegration: Memories, Morals, and Other Combustibles(2019-12) Thigpen, Trent A.; Peña, Joseph; Aubrey, Margaret; Bajuyo, LeticiaThis practice-lead research and the resulting exhibition of paintings are the product of an investigation into personal experiences of cognitive dissonance caused by emotional conflict and traumatic events. Expressing these points of conflict in fine art paintings creates the opportunity to identify defense mechanisms, coping methods, and positive resolution potential. It serves as a model for bringing these emotional experiences from the unconscious into self-directed awareness. Following the precedent of the Surrealists’ who applied Psychoanalytic Theory to art, I applied psychoanalytic concepts and two additional contemporary psychological models to guide and interpret my painting practice. The Theory of Positive Disintegration (TPD) provided a model for viewing emotional conflict and neurosis as triggers for personal growth. The Vienna Integrated Model of Top-down and Bottom-up Processes in Art Perception (VIMAP) includes a similar scenario of personal growth from conflict that an art viewer may experience. Together these naturalistic, cognitive models allowed me to consciously examine, reflect upon, and translate mental states at the cusp of change. Collage and automatic writing practices like that of the Surrealists provided an intuitive way to evoke emotional memories and explore source images that recall points of conflict and emotional states. In the painting process, I employed stylistic elements of Romantic landscapes, Neo-Expressionism, Pop Surrealism, and Magic Realism to communicate tension and to balance emotion with objectivity. This mix of styles creates flexibility in aesthetic distance within the paintings allowing the examination of emotional memories, defense mechanisms, and conflicting values and beliefs. Expressive mark-making, the psychology of landscape, metaphorical narratives, and traditional painting formats help communicate these difficult to describe mental states. A viewer may experience these feelings through triggered memories or empathy with the mood and narrative. Combining psychological models with fine art provides a relatively safe environment and perspective within which to view anxiety, depression, and other emotional tension caused by conflict and trauma as a positive means for personal growth and transformation. Viewing neurosis as a catalyst for positive change is relevant to overturning the stigma of mental “illness” and contributing to collective empowerment in response to pervasive feelings of personal, environmental, or other socio-cultural existential threats.Item Pretty Color Time(2017-12) Wood, Jack Arthur Jr; O'Malley, Ryan; Gere, Rich; Petican, Laura“Pretty Color Time” is the language that underscores my intertwined practices of painting, printmaking, collage, and theoretical study over the past year and several months. It is a culmination of three years of work rendering landscapes with particular regard for color, joy, anxiety, sexuality, and the horizon as a stratum of impermanence regarding spectral light, the essence of phenomena, and notions of a queer utopia that are forever receding. In describing the theoretical mythos of my work, I have chosen to make thoroughgoing investigations of queer theory, sublime theory, Buddhist emptiness theory, Lacanian semiotics of anxiety and desire, and the methodologies and meanings underlying the works of artists whose work I revere. I have also conducted direct interviews with Queens, NY based painter Caroline Wells Chandler (b.1985). My interviews with Caroline have proved an invaluable resource in both formulation of and motivation for my work. The work I make fixates on simultaneity; my paintings of sublime phenomena articulate manic energy as surrounding oscillations between binary fixed points. This occurs through great attention to detail in the description of abstract spaces taken as portals, or emanating an inner light, most often as horizons. In both instances, the call is to the journey, of traveling space where immediacy seems to replace time, forward is the movement, and change is a constant. I believe this space is unbound and infinite, allowing the simultaneity of what Chandler calls the “Third Layer” to arise outside of normative time – in between gender and sexuality – in a realm of embodiment that is given to creativity and the cultivation of, or even hunger for, adaptation. This idea is underscored and even mirrored by Buddhist emptiness, and the Object-Oriented Ontology construct of the Hyperobject. My findings affirm my life, work, and the professional community I am building for myself in the creative world. Through the process of matriculation I have engendered a practice of art making I believe will lead me through life as a benevolent seeker.Item Quiescent(2022-05) Koranek, Payton; Katz, Louis; O'Malley, Ryan; Aubrey, MargaretQuiescent refers to a state or period of inactivity or dormancy. This exhibition is centered around the complexity and nuance of the face to convey emotion. The concept for this body of work grew during a period of my life where I was feeling very uncertain, as though I was emotionally frozen and dormant. I was conflicted in how to approach life-changing decisions, unsure as to whether their outcomes would metaphorically move me forward or back. This was compounded by fears we all have when forced to confront the confines of our own existence. The exhibition presents a series of expressively sculpted heads to reflect the progression of my emotional self, through experiences of personal struggle, social upheaval, and the global effects of COVID-19. Their expressions do not repress, they exhibit a range of nuanced emotions including longing, disdain, or exhaustion, all familiar feelings towards the unknown. Empathy is the vehicle through which these works connect to the viewer. My process relies heavily on intuition. These pieces are intuitively sculpted and intuitively arranged. This method correlates to the inspiration for the work, relationships are driven by intuition as well.Item Undaunted by Spektra(2017-05) Mott, Allison Leighton; Garcia, Amanda; Miller, Nancy; Mercer, KevinAllison Mott’s MFA thesis exhibition will be a pop-up shop showcasing combat equipment and fashion accessories that serve in the aid of “Magical Girls.” Magic has long stood as an element of agency for women in art and literature; an agency that was capitalized upon by Japan during the Miracle Years of the 1960s via the evolving media channels targeted at 11-30 year old females. Takshi Murakami’s Superflat Manifesto and Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics serve as the theoretical foundation for this body of work. Understanding McCloud and Murakami’s framework allows the paper to shift its focus to art as a consumable, specifically Murakami’s partnership with couture fashion brands, such as Louis Vuitton, setting precedence for the Superflat style in high end ephemera. This aesthetic experience, follows the precedent set in postmodern work by Andy Warhol and Keith Haring’s “Pop Shop.” Finally the paper will touch new ground regarding the role of women in art and society, and the effects of empowering the individual in 4th wave feminism. This will include an assessment of the sociological events that lead the artist to this body of work, including the positive effects of single sex education on girls, the Riot Girl Movement of the early 90’s, the Girl Power movement of the late 90’s, and how the balance of intensities for these schools of thought are represented in the work in an effort to battle injustice and fuel greatness.Item The vocational artist(2017-05) Valdez, Jason Lucas; Peña, Joe; O'Malley, Ryan; Gron, JackArtists are vocational workers in the truest sense of the term. Contrary to the popular stereotype of “waiting for inspiration to strike”, they spend long hours in their studios creating something from nothing using a combination of learned skills, and in many cases, pure physical labor. It is the goal of this paper to present visual artists in their true form as skilled tradespeople, my personal experiences of seeing the vocational trades being downplayed in my community, and to pay respects to workingmen and women. Throughout this thesis we will look at the shared history of vocational trades and visual arts, common characteristics between the two, and the sociological theory of William Morris about the nature of work and production. The formation of guilds, organizations based around a common practice, dates back to the Middle Ages when skilled workers would join together in order to gain control over their particular craft. The visual arts also share some characteristics with the trades. One of the most obvious is the satisfaction of creating something tangible. A mechanic can work for eight hours and at the end of the day see the physical result of his/her labor. These concepts can be further explained in the work of William Morris (1834-1895). In his essay, Art, Labor, and Socialism, he argues that art is the “pleasure in the labor of production”. He goes onto divide art making into three elements; variety (creating something new, then modifying it), hope of creation (the knowledge that your work could not exist without your hand), and the self-respect felt from creating something of value. For my thesis show I’ve created a body of work comprised of common working class materials. I have used the image of the diesel and “straight six” gasoline engines as symbols of the blue-collar work ethic. Diesel motors are known for their longevity and durability which is why I felt they would be the best representation of the what I like to call the “Die Hard Spirit”; workingmen and women who toil everyday, rain or shine, so we can have things like electricity and running water. I’m also exploring the deeper levels of meaning that come from my use of materials; the idea that I’m working within my chosen trade, using the materials of the trades to make work about tradesmen.