Date of Award
Spring 6-2022
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Visual Art
Degree Type
Thesis
Abstract
I create fragile, sculptural works with paper. Either cast from pre-existing objects or constructed forms, my three-dimensional works ultimately become pure paper objects. I use the visual language of absence, memory, ruin and ephemerality to present modern artifacts and address the now. I am interested in how the manufactured crumbs we leave behind as a species reveal our collective desires, and our relationship to the body and mortality. I am fascinated with, and even enchanted by, the proliferation of material objects and their tendency to surpass the lifespan of any single human. Perhaps this behavior of producing lasting creations is somehow a way to defer an acceptance of our own disappearance. By translating material remnants into delicate paper shells, I explore the tension between the ephemerality of the living and the everlasting persistence of the inanimate.
I combine imagery and material sourced from machinic, bodily, living, dead, non-human animal and human domains and blend them into a state of atemporal ambiguity. Salvaged artifacts originating from multiple generations function as temporary armatures for my cast paper sculptures. I choose objects that connote the body in utility and form, and animal figures that are represented as objects, ruins, or human projections. By sourcing images from cemeteries and infusing materials with dead matter, I create connections to the departed. I am interested in how commonplace objects function as prosthetics to breach biological and social limitations, and the way in which they expedite the reciprocal process of human domestication.
Language
English
Program Chair
Lisa Bulawsky
Thesis Text Advisor
Arnold Nadler
Thesis Text Advisor
Monika Weiss
Faculty Mentor
Arnold Nadler
Committee Member
Cheryl Wassenaar
Committee Member
Thomas Reed
Committee Member
Arnold Nadler
Recommended Citation
Johnston, Erin, "The Ephemerality of the Living and the Persistence of the Inanimate" (2022). MFA in Visual Art. 3.
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/mfa_visual_art/3
Artist's Statement
I create fragile, sculptural works with paper. Either cast from pre-existing objects or constructed forms, my three-dimensional works ultimately become pure paper objects. I use the visual language of absence, memory, ruin and ephemerality to present modern artifacts and address the now. I am interested in how the manufactured crumbs we leave behind as a species reveal our collective desires, and our relationship to the body and mortality. I am fascinated with, and even enchanted by, the proliferation of material objects and their tendency to surpass the lifespan of any single human. Perhaps this behavior of producing lasting creations is somehow a way to defer an acceptance of our own disappearance. By translating material remnants into delicate paper shells, I explore the tension between the ephemerality of the living and the everlasting persistence of the inanimate.
I draw inspiration from a background in conservation biology, and a strong emotional connection to living things. To emphasize a fluidity between existential domains, I combine imagery and materials from the living, the inanimate, the animal, the human, and the dead. Salvaged artifacts originating from multiple generations function as temporary armatures for my cast paper sculptures. I choose objects that connote the body in utility and form, and animal figures that are represented as objects, ruins, or human projections. I am interested in how everyday objects function as subtle prosthetics to breach biological and social limitations, and the ways in which they expedite the reciprocal process of human domestication.
I will consider my work successful when it activates an emotion within the viewer that is basal in origin and difficult to place. I hope to provide a microcosm where time is elongated, and a meditation on corporality and earthly connectivity can be felt.