Date of Award
12-2007
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Legacy Department
Visual Arts
Committee Chair/Advisor
McDonald, Todd
Committee Member
Detrich , David M
Committee Member
Cross , Sydney A
Abstract
ABSTRACT
My work places emphasis on the anxiety and allure felt at the possibility of ingesting an object belonging to or displaced from the body through the language of abstract art. It links the fears and fascinations felt in situations of perceived abnormality and bodily aggression, to the objectification, or conversely abjection, of objects through images. I investigate a collapse in division between what the perceived identity of a thing or person is, and what it is not.
Each painting rejects an ideal of beauty as portrayed through stability, clarity, and compartmentalization, and embraces beauty as the interconnectedness of opposing forces, specifically in the relationship between repulsion and allure. The contemporary language of consumer culture is reflected in this body of work by the way time, visual information, and sensory stimulators are overlapped, manipulated, and restructured. The viewer is sucked into the action of the space, the physicality of the paint, and visceral allusions, and upon entering the painting is overwhelmed by information shifting and churning. Without a distinction between elements of the painting to grasp at, the experience itself becomes everything.
Recommended Citation
Hanley, Mary, "A Breakdown in Boundaries: As Explored Through Abjection and the Language of Abstract Art" (2007). All Theses. 283.
https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses/283