Abstract

I make objects that behave like bodies—graceful hybrids that are effortlessly cultural and natural, masculine and feminine, plant and animal. Shifting and slipping between unfixed identities, they exist as multiplicities. When these bodies touch, power and pleasure are fluidly exchanged. However, power is not structured here as a binary and pleasure is not finite; both have the potential to flow between bodies, blurring boundaries and rendering individuality delicate.

My work is primarily rooted in the relationship between desire, intimacy, and control, with the body acting as a site of power play. This body may be plant, animal, sculpture, or material. I am especially concerned with material relationships as materials have performative agency. Their physics and chemistry must be negotiated with. Using sensual materials like sex-safe silicone, salt, and seeds, my studio practice itself is an exercise in dominance and submission.

This thesis explores how my objects, processes, and strategies of display trouble the binary and render familiar signifiers strange. It focuses on bodies placed in tension - penetrated and suspended just at the point of touch. However, it also imagines the possibility of bodies coming together through physical and psychoemotional fusion using consumption and love as moments in which the autonomous self is breached.

Committee Chair

Cheryl Wassenaar

Committee Members

Cheryl Wassenaar

Comments

Permanent URL: https://doi.org/10.7936/K74J0C9K

Degree

Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Visual Art

Author's Department

Graduate School of Art

Author's School

Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts

Document Type

Thesis

Date of Award

Spring 5-2015

Language

English (en)

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