DOI

https://doi.org/10.25772/Y9HZ-MT28

Defense Date

1996

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts

Department

Painting and Printmaking

First Advisor

Morris Yarowsky

Abstract

My work focuses on the reality and life of mental objects. The unseen masquerade as the seen, not only in our mind's eye but as an immediate visual experience.

To realize this I apply volumetric form to models of thought and present them in a variety of environments. The forms are derived from the fields of science and mathematics, specifically geometry and topology. Topology or "rubber-sheet geometry," is the study of shapes whose essential attributes are unchanged by continuous deformation. The shapes are not defined by measurements of distance and angle, but by whether they can be transformed when bent, stretched, or shrunk. For these shapes I assemble environments which include architecture and devices from Italian Renaissance painting. In constructing the compositions I use an underlying geometric framework. The impetus for this device is that all things are hung on a structure of some sort, whether it be paint or metaphor. This device is also connected to Renaissance ideas of proving the divine through the employment of mathematics, or rather, using the tools of the exact sciences as a way of proving the unprovable. I see these arrangements as exemplifying a Metaphysics of Beauty in which the Platonic world of scientific and mathematical objects is filtered through aesthetics in what I have termed Calliphysics. Kale, from the Greek, meaning beautiful.

Rights

© The Author

Is Part Of

VCU University Archives

Is Part Of

VCU Theses and Dissertations

Date of Submission

8-9-2016

Included in

Fine Arts Commons

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