Date of Award
2015
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
M.F.A. in Art
Department
Art and Art History
First Advisor
Sheri Rieth
Second Advisor
Ernest Forward
Third Advisor
Josh Brinlee
Relational Format
dissertation/thesis
Abstract
The works in my thesis exhibition have all been made within my three years attending The University of Mississippi and relate to my experiences traveling around South America and various places in North America, where I observed how different cultures view power and how it serves them. In this body of work, I looked for meaning in the process of discovery, whether it is found in a personal, social, or regional background. The exhibition is composed mostly of medium to large prints, in addition to some drawings and chine collé. The prints vary in size, shape, color, pattern, mediums and all deal with the idea of energy, power and communication and how they are connected. The purpose of this thesis is to understand different systems such as the neurological pathways of the brain, the mechanical connection of machines, and the ways they function. When I visualize these connections, I think about the pathways the information travels through. In human brains it is like tiny cells so tightly bunched they create thin wires, but the communication is done through electro-chemical stimuli. In the aluminum plate lithographs I have shown this with black lines that travel around the picture and connect to different shapes. These would be the neuron networks packed together, the different colors are how I imagine the different chemical stimuli being spread. However, machines do this in a similar way but only rely on electricity. Other means of communication such as pathways found in nature and the natural patterns they create also interest me, for instance how animal trails connect or diverge from each other but also lead to different places like food, water and shelter. Other people who have explored these ideas are Mondrian in his Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue (1935–42) along with Broadway Boogie Woogie (1943), and Marshal McLuhan in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964). Questions that kept popping up are: Where do these ideas come from? How do we break the tradition of older forms of communication and bridge a gap to newer ones? The various processes in printmaking have allome to explore many different ways of making art and see which ones bring more success than the others. I don't always want to confine the viewer to thinking what I'm thinking. I want the viewer to be able to make up their own ideas or stories.
Recommended Citation
Bradway, David Lingen, "Machine Dreams" (2015). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 581.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/581
Concentration/Emphasis
Emphasis: Printmaking