Defense Date
2026
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts
Department
Painting and Printmaking
First Advisor
Cara Benedetto
Second Advisor
Noah Simblist
Third Advisor
Jacob Todd Broussard
Abstract
Daisyworld explores how painting can represent ecological and sociopolitical crisis without relying on narratives of total collapse as a catastrophic end, instead framing the present as a condition of ongoing, uneven transformation. Drawing on ecological models of adaptation, interdependence, and planetary self-regulation, it uses plant fasciation as both a biological reference and speculative metaphor for distorted yet generative forms of survival. Situating painting within a broader history of visual culture, it examines how images function as accessible systems of knowledge while challenging colonial and human-centered modes of representation. In dialogue with contemporary, systems-based artistic practices, the project repositions painting as a speculative and discursive medium, capable of staging complex, evolving relationships through layered, temporally dense compositions. Ultimately, it proposes an anti-catastrophic visual language grounded in allegory and worldbuilding, where instability, mutation, and interdependence become central to imagining survival within a world already in flux.
Rights
© Eva Foldy
Is Part Of
VCU University Archives
Is Part Of
VCU Theses and Dissertations
Date of Submission
5-5-2026