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open access

Loss of Innocence

Description: Loss of Innocence uses sculpture, two-dimensional imagery, and text to explore the moment when children lose their innocence or realize their mortality. In the introduction, I explain that there are many factors, such as age and personality, which determine how children will deal with traumatic events in their lives and the duration of time that must pass before they move past the event. Often, children will combine childhood fantasy with random facts to create their own satisfactory explanatio… more
Date: May 2002
Creator: Smith, Jennifer J.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Surfacing the Void

Description: Surfacing the Void is an exploration of surface design in relationship to the topic of voids. For the purpose of this paper, two types of void were addressed: shelters and hulls. The theme behind the sculptural works dealt with negative spaces as an analogy for the voids in people's lives. The goal was to find a way for the surfaces to elicit an emotional response from the viewer that correlates to the impression of either shelter or hull. Keeping this in mind, each experiment was approached w… more
Date: May 2002
Creator: Williamson, Melanie L.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Tangible Struggle

Description: The focus of my graduate work was to find my own voice through my continued efforts in woodcarving. I proposed to produce six to eight wood carved sculptures for my thesis that would be dealing with a juxtaposition of struggle expressively portrayed by the figure between two-dimensional and three-dimensional worlds. I used these works to express my emotions about myself, and my interactions with others in a form of nonverbal communication with the viewer. The result of this process did lead me … more
Date: May 2003
Creator: Whelan, Shawn
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Professional Widow

Description: The focus of my graduate work was to figure my way through a variety of challenges and transitions I was going through as a graduate student and simply as a person finding my way through my education to discover who I am and who I want to become. Perhaps my themes didn't focus primarily on these events in a literal sense, but I think the transitions in my artwork have become obvious through my time spent at UNT and the variations on a theme I have dealt with. All of my work deals with love, att… more
Date: May 2004
Creator: McKinley, Katherine L.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Unreadable Word

Description: This autobiographical problem in lieu of thesis explores the subject matter of the sculpture, revolving around the issues of dyslexia and literacy, and builds upon the idea of metaphor and its function in relationship to the sculpture. The four visual and conceptual elements that are emphasized are: (a) the juxtaposition and arrangement of elements and materials; (b) inability to open the books; (c) alteration of the text to make the words illegible, by creating words that are fuzzy or transpar… more
Date: May 2004
Creator: McGehearty, Eric
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Exploration through Materials and the Transformation of the Commonplace

Description: The challenge of this project was to present subject matter in a way that did not seem common to the viewer. With this goal in mind, I aimed to switch the traditional roles of material and form in order to aesthetically elevate the commonplace. For my proposed project I combined traditional sculptural materials and processes with commonplace subject matter. I took a chance at the beginning of this project by making something that I had been joking about until I realized that this might be an in… more
Date: May 2001
Creator: Sides, Luke
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Activating Space within the Object and the Site

Description: I look at the world as a sculptor, examining physical constructs and implied meanings. My current research developed from my earlier studies of “containment” or, more specifically, “encapsulation,” creating visual, often physical, boundaries around selected content. Encapsulation confers a more active role than “containment”, a process rather than a result. This idea speaks to the issues of form, and asks the viewer to question the outside “shape of the form” in relation to the inside shape and… more
Date: May 2001
Creator: Provence, Dana Noel
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Formal Concerns in Conceptual Sculpture

Description: The problem I choose dealt with a new material to use in conceptual art. Since the nature of my work deals with ribbed sculptural forms that explore conceptual abstractions of recorded observations, I investigated a new material called composites. A composite is defined as two or more materials that are combined to share the best qualities of both. Laminated foam core, nylon fabric weave, vinyl, and resin composites may introduce an aesthetic and structural advantage to traditional material suc… more
Date: May 2001
Creator: Stromberg, Matthew Gray
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Healing & Reassembling

Description: Working to unravel my sense of the world and challenge the narratives and beliefs I hold as truths; I have created a reimagined and surreal bathroom that offers a private and vulnerable space filled with hidden horrors. The animated, imperfect, decayed, and cracked bathroom forms bridge the gap between the impermanent fragility of memory and the ongoing beliefs of a personal narrative. I worked to overcome the assumption that, to heal, something must be completely resolved within itself. Instea… more
Date: May 2022
Creator: Potts, Emily
Partner: UNT College of Visual Arts + Design
open access

Legend Systems: an Escape to a Hidden Land

Description: Brief Artist Statement by Maria Villanueva as part of a 2021 MFA Exhibition, entitled "Legend Systems: an escape to a hidden land” in the Environmental Education, Science and Technology Building Atrium on the campus of the University of North Texas on March 1-5, 2021.
Date: May 2021
Creator: Villanueva, Maria
Partner: UNT College of Visual Arts + Design
open access

Modified Aesthetics on an Inner Space

Description: Brief Artist Statement by Russell Anderson as part of a 2021 MFA Exhibition, entitled "Modified Aesthetics on an Inner Space” in the Cora Stafford Gallery on the campus of the University of North Texas on March 29-April 9, 2021.
Date: May 2021
Creator: Anderson, Russell
Partner: UNT College of Visual Arts + Design
open access

Confluence

Description: My artwork dialogues with three topics: climate change’s economic and societal impact, plant genetic engineering advances, and art’s influence on scientific creativity and innovation. These intersect in my focus on the mystery and promise of plant genetic research and the creative innovation needed to advance this research. I manipulate, massage, and mix contemporary mediums and traditional sculpture, fiber and painting mediums. My sculptures often have translucent elements that interact vividl… more
Date: May 2022
Creator: Samson, Philip F.
Partner: UNT College of Visual Arts + Design
open access

Of My Own Making

Description: As we travel through life, we lose pieces of ourselves. It’s inevitable. Yet we are more than the sum of our parts. These pieces can be cast aside, lost to the wind or imply left behind. They can also be stitched back together, forming a patchwork quilt of sorts. The world is constantly changing, and now more than ever we live in a time of uncertainty. So, I feel the need to stitch together my reality. I am a Maker, and I choose to make a reflection of the world I want to inhabit; a world of my… more
Date: May 2020
Creator: O’Dwyer, Traci
Partner: UNT College of Visual Arts + Design
open access

Unicorn Magic

Description: Brief Artist Statement by Jacob Phillips as part of a 2021 MFA Exhibition, entitled "Unicorn Magic” in the Cora Stafford Gallery on the campus of the University of North Texas on April 12-22, 2021.
Date: May 2021
Creator: Phillips, Jacob
Partner: UNT College of Visual Arts + Design
open access

Visceral Reflections

Description: I am an interdisciplinary artist whose work bridges mental health, body dysmorphia, and the visual arts together through sculptures, paintings, performances, and large installations. I work with traditional and nontraditional materials through a manual and digital process to physically represent my realities of living with body dysmorphic disorder. I use padding, paper, and other fibrous objects as metaphors for the flesh and manipulate these materials in numerous ways to create exaggerations o… more
Date: May 2020
Creator: Hoskins, Heather
Partner: UNT College of Visual Arts + Design
open access

Entanglement

Description: Brief Artist Statement by Kyung Hee “Kate” Im as part of a 2021 MFA Exhibition, entitled "Entanglement” in the Union Art Gallery on the campus of the University of North Texas on April 5-22, 2021.
Date: May 2021
Creator: Im, Kyung Hee
Partner: UNT College of Visual Arts + Design
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Angelfish Prayers

Description: Artist Statement from the MFA Exhibition: "Through my art I strive to raise awareness towards the protection of the ocean. Plastic pollution, over-fishing, species extinction, and nuclear waste are some of the problems I symbolize in order to create conversations around the issues and do my part in starting a wave of change. The ocean is one interconnected circulatory system for our plane,t so anywhere that humans are abusing the oceans, it affects us all. I hope to remind people of the sacred… more
Date: May 2019
Creator: Wachal, Amy
Partner: UNT College of Visual Arts + Design
open access

Constructed Self

Description: Constructed Self is an exhibition of life-size forms that blur the line between photography and sculpture while being both stable and on the verge of collapse. These damaged concrete columns, slabs, and hand-formed bricks used to create walls are inspired by architecture's support structures to convey my internal psychic framework. Photographs are transferred on the surface of these forms that depict environments where I have processed and experienced my struggles with mental health. This work … more
Date: May 2022
Creator: West, Kaitlin
Partner: UNT College of Visual Arts + Design
open access

The Distance Between

Description: The Distance Between is a collection of works installed as a temple of cicadas with the culmination of pieces enshrining the cycle of their annual emergence and disappearance. This exhibition utilizes the design elements of a Gothic cathedral to create a theoretical religion based on the cicada’s lifecycle. Cicadas are cast in an array of forms in glass and bronze utilizing the intrinsic qualities of the materials in conjunction with their historical use. This work is a romanticized solution of… more
Date: May 2024
Creator: Markum, Liz
Partner: UNT College of Visual Arts + Design
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