Honors Theses

Date of Award

2009

Document Type

Undergraduate Thesis

Department

Art and Art History

First Advisor

Jeffery Jackson

Relational Format

Dissertation/Thesis

Abstract

I am a painter and my thesis work talks about connecting to people through a shared experience. I spent Christmas break and spring semester as a traveling painter, putting all my brushes, paints, mediums, boards and my travel easel in my car. I sought to find the quiet, simple moments in people’s lives and put them on a surface. By sharing these simple moments with people I found a connection in painting from life that I cannot find when painting from a photograph. As I continued painting and writing I began to think about modem technology and how it has detached us from one another emotionally and physically. I thought about how communication has changed over the years, from landlines to cell phones and from hand-written letters to email. I found through my research that despite being surrounded hy so much technology people still feel disconnected. My paintings are small in size, inviting the viewer to slow down and step into an intimate space. In Gallery 130 I chose to install my work in one of the smaller comers, a space where viewers would feel comfortable rather than overwhelmed. I had white frames made which seemed to magically disappear into the wall, thus enhancing the color nnd light of the paintings. I concluded from my research that the solution to disconnection in society is to reconnect with one another in the simplest of ways, and through these paintings I invite the viewer to share with someone else a simple moment in the human experience.

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