Abstract

When making my work I constantly reflect on past mythologies, images, and objects. These served people as a way to make sense of and understand the dynamics of the world around them. As we continue to alter and shape the world into one designed for exclusively human benefit, we need new models that reveal the dynamics of our relationship to the world around us. This is what artists have been doing for centuries, and I specifically look to those using animals and animal imagery in their work to further mythologize our contemporary understanding of the human-other animal relationship. My body of work utilizes methods of drawing, printmaking, sculpture, and video to create contemporary icons, objects, and rituals. Icons are re-appropriated, objects are redefined, and rituals are reinterpreted in my work in a way that becomes relevant again for a contemporary audience. Animal imagery is used in a way that explores current trends in genetics, industry, consumerism, and power to reveal this contemporary mythology. These are certainly informed by the prehistoric understanding of this relationship as it is in jarring contrast to our notions today. This juxtaposition serves to illuminate how this relationship has been distorted in this historically recent time while aiming to enlighten us to the power of the other, the thing-ness or vitality of the animal and re-calibrate contemporary notions in order to achieve reconciliation with a natural order of things.

Thesis Completion

2016

Semester

Spring

Thesis Chair/Advisor

Buyssens, Ryan

Degree

Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.)

College

College of Arts and Humanities

Department

School of Visual Arts and Design

Location

Orlando (Main) Campus

Language

English

Access Status

Open Access

Release Date

May 2016

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Included in

Fine Arts Commons

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