DOI

https://doi.org/10.25772/52M3-TG82

Defense Date

2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts

Department

Sculpture + Extended Media

First Advisor

Carlton Newton

Second Advisor

Corin Hewitt

Third Advisor

Irvin Morazan

Fourth Advisor

Kendall Buster

Fifth Advisor

Michael Jones McKean

Sixth Advisor

Matt King

Abstract

My thesis installation emerged from an interest in visualizing breath. The resulting work came to exist at the intersection between art, biology, and performance.

The unicorn tapestries were used as a generative point of departure to explore the preservation and transformation of images through time, by time, and with time. Reproductions of the six tapestries were each etched into paper and then submerged into solutions of Phenol Red dye, Ferric Ferrocyanide (also known as Prussian Blue), and various forms of sodium chloride. Exhaled breath was used to encrust these images of the tapestries into physical objects which gradually crystallized and changed colors in response to viewers within the surrounding space. An invasive plant species native to Richmond, Virginia was utilized as a catalyst to re-absorb Carbonic acid from exhaled breath and convert the objects back to their original (or not so original) states. The final piece became the active remnants from an inquiry which quickly snowballed into so much more than I had initially planned.

The following text is written as a supplemental reading to trace some of my influences at the periphery of the piece while mapping my thought processes.

Rights

© The Author

Is Part Of

VCU University Archives

Is Part Of

VCU Theses and Dissertations

Date of Submission

5-13-2016

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