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