Browsing by Author "Osborne, Erika, advisor"
Now showing 1 - 13 of 13
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Open Access A disobedient mediation(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Bagdon, Andrea, author; Osborne, Erika, advisor; Bernagozzi, Jason, committee member; Ryan, Ajean, committee member; Little, Ann, committee memberHistorically within the canon of art, specifically painting, the female form and ultimately female identity was understood in binary terms as being an opposite of the heroic male, conveyed as a commoditized trope of the feminine. There was a disruption to the canon of art in 1968 with the invention of the handheld Sony Portapak camcorder. Many female artists adapted video into their artmaking practice for its ability to become an effective communication medium. In its infancy, the medium of video was not yet dominated by male artists and was not taught in most art institutions. Thus, it represented a medium untainted by the baggage of art history. As a result, experimental video became a feminist medium which offered an alternative form of mediation to subvert the patriarchal artistic canon. Artists have the potential to be researchers of perception and Art can become an agent of mediation to breakdown subjective social orders that cloud our consciousness. My work aims to decode and expose the abstracted systems of femininity and the domestic by using the image processing mediums of video and paint. My paintings and videos unveil multiple emotional states from the same female-identifying psyche in order to examine intimate scenes of self-conflict which have been brought on by obsessive cultural programming. By using uncomfortable representations of the domestic and the figure I also intend to highlight the psychological trauma and disrupt the patriarchal lens that is inherent within the canon of art.Item Open Access Agency of ecological landscapes through paintings of the American West(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Hinkelman, Adam, author; Osborne, Erika, advisor; Lajarin-Encina, Aitor, advisor; Harrow, Del, committee member; Moore, Emily, committee member; Bowser, Gillian, committee memberThe lineage of American landscape paintings invokes a hierarchical structure cresting with humankind and the divine. This evokes problematic relational dynamics between humanity and the natural world which is exacerbated by Anthropocentric activity. Traditionally, early western landscape artists illustrated nature as a sublime force displayed as vast expanses of "untamed" wilderness, ethereal mountain peaks, fertile valleys, and steaming brooks. Alongside colonial settlements, paintings effectively lured eager European Americans to claim land through western expansion. To promote mutualistic bonds between humans and nature and contribute towards a new decolonial ecology, my thesis instills agency to natural landscapes by exploring a synthesis between generational historicity to place, non-anthropocentric phenomenology through kinship, and a painting process enriched by the practice of ultra distance trail running. More specifically, my paintings recognize the innate agency of trees, mountains, and glaciers through non-human centric perspectives across time scales, spatial dimensions, and non-observable light wave spectrums. This invites observers to identify a kinship with nature from non-anthropocentric grounding.Item Open Access Beauty in decay(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Brakefeld, Jennifer L., author; Sullivan, Patrice, advisor; Osborne, Erika, advisor; Simons, Stephen, committee member; McKee, Patrick, committee memberIndustrial Agricultural complexes offer an aesthetic beauty in the decay of its materials and structures. American interest in agriculture as an investment in domestic self-reliance has waned over time leaving behind gigantic structures that are left to deteriorate without upkeep. The lack of upkeep causes a physical deterioration of the structures and the materials. My work exposes the beauty in this deterioration though the use of the formal elements of painting. Color, texture, form and light are the elements used for the execution of my paintings. Canvas size also plays a key role in my work as it places the subject matter on a historically relevant scale in a similar fashion to the painting Burial at Ornan by Gustav Courbet.Item Open Access Collected fragments(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017) Gabriel, Katie, author; Osborne, Erika, advisor; Sullivan, Patrice, committee member; Lundberg, Tom, committee member; Harvey, Ashley, committee memberThis paper explores the connections between memory and identity existing in my artworks that reimagine family photographs. I am interested in the ability of photographs, objects, and patterns to prop up, and in many cases, form our understanding of past moments that connect family members who are both absent and present. My work explores how these connections forge a family's collective memory. As photos within an album create a disjointed narrative with reoccurring actors, my work questions how in time our understanding of a person, or group of people, may change. Hierarchy among the various elements captured in a photograph becomes dependent upon my emotional and aesthetic response, allowing objects or patterns to act as visceral representations of a person, and at times catalysts for masking and presenting.Item Open Access Creating worlds(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Wilson, Eleanor, author; Sullivan, Patrice, advisor; Osborne, Erika, advisor; Kokoska, Mary-Ann, committee member; Doenges, Judy, committee memberA longing for adventure is a component of human nature. The adventures that I am interested in are ones that can only exist in the realm of imagination. Fantasy has traditionally been a way to vicariously find that adventure. More recently, video games have allowed the player to become immersed in new worlds. Like video games, film, and fiction, my paintings also use imagery from fantasy worlds. A large portion of my work utilizes paradoxical humor through the juxtaposition of unlikely objects or settings and the anthropomorphization of inanimate objects that act as the protagonists in the stories the paintings tell. I incorporate aspects of interactivity into my pieces that allow the viewer to cross the line and become a participant in the piece. In my works, I try to highlight the limited nature of the world we live in versus the unlimited nature of imagination. To create imaginary worlds I use the art style of many games in the way I incorporate visual elements.Item Open Access Formal fluidity: the blending performance of gender, identity, and art making(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Gillespie, Spencer, author; Osborne, Erika, advisor; Leal, Francisco, committee member; Riep, Dave, committee member; Lehene, Marius, committee memberMy art, like life, is in a constant state of flux. I bring a personal and unique history to the making process each time I enter the studio. My work is visually autobiographical with written text and expressive mark making. I deal with thoughts of mental health by journaling on the surface of my paintings. I use my body to physically express and work through thoughts of sadness or joy. Throwing materials at the work, gouging the surface with tools, jumping to reach the top edges, or throwing water on top of the painting are all examples of that. I transcend stigmatic social labels of gender norms by hiding and subverting the performance of my actions through layers of work and process, mirroring and recording how I felt in the execution of creation. While working in my studio and critically engaging with the fragility of my process, I am also constrained by my formalist teachings. There is a balance between merging this formal training while engaging in self-reverential work. The blending of these two elements allude to a closer look at myself and how I choose to present myself within the context of a heteronormative society. Subverting gender performativity through nonrepresentational art making while engaging in the process of highlighting my gender identity allows for a performative, fluid process in which I place myself in the world.Item Open Access Forms of transformation(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Nelson, Christy, author; Osborne, Erika, advisor; Emami, Sanam, committee member; Flippen, Paul, committee member; Dik, Bryan, committee memberI find used, soiled, discarded, often familial objects and using art agents like encaustic, stretcher frames, and pigment, I change them into new things. This resonates with Bill Brown's Thing Theory which deals with human-object interaction and the shift in perception of an "object" to a "thing." Some of my newly recreated "things" expose holes or scars that can be closed and opened similarly to a wound that is perpetually re-opening and re-healing. Rachel Sussman, Kiki Smith and Louise Bourgeois are three artists who also deal with differing types of healing in their art. Though there are some similarities in how we approach repair, my work revels in the process of tangibly redeeming salvaged forms and freezing them in a moment of restoration. This experience is empowering to me, as it provides a form of therapy and is often a magical interaction. Beyond the symbiotic interaction of the found-objects compelling me to remake them and the process-based catharsis they in turn offer me, I seek to engage the audience with these pieces. As the viewer sees the transformed artworks, I remind them that renewal is possible and ask them to be active participants in the process.Item Open Access Malicious innocence(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2016) Swihart, Sam, author; Osborne, Erika, advisor; Lehene, Marius, committee member; Moore, Emily, committee member; Cooperman, Matthew, committee memberMy work represents an exploration of warfare through the lens of children both in and out of the combat zone. Because warfare is such a multifaceted enigma, many of its aspects become overlooked in favor of grandiose narratives that speak towards its glorification or abhorrence. In the past, art was used to ennoble warfare as a kind of sport for the aristocracy, while legitimizing conflict through the actions of the ruler and state. However, beginning in the nineteenth century, there was a shift in propaganda that focused more intensely on the role of the individual soldier. By the twentieth century the focus had shifted largely away from the valor of individuals, instead focusing ever more on the abject qualities of modern warfare. These narratives all share a common theme that is primarily focused on the actions of individual soldiers or units, their heroism, and the horrors they endured. Yet children often play an ancillary role in many of these narratives, either providing a source for pity, or showing desperation while emphasizing the loathsomeness of an enemy. For this reason, I have chose to tackle the subject from a different angle – that of the child’s involvement both in play as well as combat. By exploring the often overlooked role of children both in actual conflict as well as the social roles of children on the home front in times of war I hope to examine not only the effects of battle on the child, but also the cultural conditioning of children to further perpetuate the cycle of violence through the reinforcement of societal norms. To achieve this I have been playing off the duality of chaos by juxtaposing imagery of children at play with imagery of war and its consequences. Throughout this exploration my work has made several dramatic aesthetic shifts in an effort to communicate this sense of chaos – psychologically as well as physically. By combining traditional, indirect painting methods with contemporary photorealism, I hope to create visual tension between areas that are fully rendered as well as areas that are under developed and deliberately obscured. I have also begun the use of photo collage in the creation of my paintings in an effort to further destabilize the visual field and to bring an additional air of uncertainty to the narrative. Furthermore my palette has shifted away from a traditional, limited palette to incorporate a variety of colors. These help to emphasize the more unsettling aspects of the subject. By incorporating these elements of painting into the work I hope to represent a sense of disorientation that echoes the abstruseness of war itself.Item Open Access Mental planes(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Titone, Jennifer, author; Sullivan, Patrice, advisor; Osborne, Erika, advisor; Ryan, Ajean, committee member; Bohn, Andrea, committee memberMy works are mental planes in which I chart the accounts and associations I have with textiles and patterned objects. Each piece is a direct consequence of being raised within a family of industrial textile manufactures that produced fabrics for fashion, food, and bio-medical science industries. While I do not know the technicalities that exist within the process of designing and creating fabric-based materials and ornamentations, my daily exposure to the industrial craft has instilled an inherent sensibility for textiles and related objects of pattern that I come in contact within my daily encounters. Painting in an abstract manner that mimics collage, I incorporate the synthetic, the flat, and the vagaries within representational forms. This encourages intentional ambiguity within synthesized spaces, causing the viewer to struggle and grasp to make a connection. The viewers are invited into the puzzle to create their own narratives of place and time.Item Open Access Psychological exchange(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2015) Byrd, Adriane, author; Osborne, Erika, advisor; Huibregtse, Gary, committee member; Lehene, Marius, committee member; Conner, Bradley, committee memberMy artwork functions as a way to explore and define the personality traits that I developed as a consequence of early life experiences. My paintings are highly introspective and depend on themes of repetition, time, aspects of the gaze and a relationship with the viewer to understand their true meaning. I use my own personality dispositions toward subtle emotion and properties of observation to create a psychologically active dialogue between the viewer and the content of my work. I also employ the use of time and the compulsive need for order and repetition to reveal the desire to define and understand my own psychology.Item Open Access See man(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2018) Jones, Adam, author; Osborne, Erika, advisor; Lundberg, Tom, committee member; Dineen, Mark, committee member; Martinez, Doreen E., committee memberMy research asks a series of questions about how societal pressures sculpt male cultural roles in the United States. What components constitutes being a man? How have the constructed ideologies adopted by Americans affected my livelihood? How do the patriarchal structures in place shape my world view? Being a white, heterosexual male who fits within the privileged patriarchal systems of the United States, I feel a calling and obligation to utilize my voice to expose the toxic effects these systems have had on me and the rest of the American population. Toxic forms of masculinity are creating displacement, marginalization, and oppression of large groups of Americans. My work is an investigation aiming to unveil and exploit the effects of the ideologies of Christianity, nationalism and capitalism, and how these ideologies reinforce the toxic hegemonic masculine engine. The focus of my practice is to create and incorporate coded symbols and non-traditional painting materials as metaphors for stereotyped manliness.Item Open Access The edge of place(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Sullivan, Emily, author; Osborne, Erika, advisor; Badia, Lynn, committee member; Dineen, Mark, committee member; Moore, Emily, committee memberMy thesis work uses clouds as a metaphor to explore transition, change, and shifts. I track the origins of my interest in landscape painting by discussing nineteenth century Hudson River School painters — the first to celebrate the American landscape in a traditional oil painting method. Their practice of painting en plein air, in addition to their mobile studio practices as artist-adventurers, influences my paint language and approach. Frederic Church's painted cloud sketches are highlighted for his process, materials, and relationship to place. I argue that these paintings, both finished and unfinished, exist in a state of liminality. Next, I detail a search for the "local" in the presence of multicenteredness and movement, as outlined in Lucy Lippard's text, The Lure of the Local. In my series Holding Patterns, and my thesis work The Edge of Place, I question what it means to find a sense of place within shifting localities. I reference contemporary approaches to landscape and skyscape painting within the context of Lippard's discussion. The history of liminality is followed, using anthropologist Victor Turner's work as a launching point to discuss how liminal spaces are illustrated in my paintings. My work is also supported by Rebecca Solnit's text A Field Guide to Getting Lost to show how relationships in flux can be mirrored in the landscape. Finally, time as a marker of liminality is discussed within the context of my paintings.Item Open Access The lesbian artist as a child(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2018) Rudlaff, Barbara, author; Osborne, Erika, advisor; Flippen, Paul, committee member; Koskoska, Mary-Ann, committee member; DeMirjyn, Maricela, committee memberMy thesis project is an artistic response to my experiences growing up as a feminist lesbian in the United States, England and Belgium in the 1970's and 80's. My monochromatic, childhood self-portraits reference some of the challenges I faced from western, hetero-centric patriarchy and my paper discusses how my identity as "Other" compelled me to discover, then determine, my place in society as well as in art history.