DOI
https://doi.org/10.25772/A9SS-6Q46
Defense Date
2010
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts
Department
Painting and Printmaking
First Advisor
Hilary Wilder
Abstract
Abstract: My vanilla, Grade A, white bread, run-of-the-mill, middle-of-the-road, threadbare, well-worn, moth-eaten, potato sack, butterscotch, grass stained America: Mundane American life is an existence clinging to the ordinary, where a quilt of mass- mediated preferences and ingrained traditions define many people, specifically from north to south and east to west. Yet, the tastes and dialects of people within the mundane are complex. Ideological preferences are rooted in immigrant history and political persuasion. Various modes of realism have been used by American painters such as The Ash Can School, Regionalists of the 1930’s, and Pop Art. The notion of the real and mundane have an integral link to each other in art, as often the real may reveal a truth about the world, that which may be ugly or sordid. Depictions of everyday objects and common people break down the great divide between high art and popular culture. Pop Art is postmodern in its "generational refusal of the categorical certainties of high modernism." In this paper I will dissect the complexity of the mundane through the use of my own and others’ paintings and photographs. Through reference and description Americana’s well-worn customs and preferences in day-to-day life will be analyzed.
Rights
© The Author
Is Part Of
VCU University Archives
Is Part Of
VCU Theses and Dissertations
Date of Submission
5-17-2010