UH Faculty, Staff, and Student Works
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Browsing UH Faculty, Staff, and Student Works by Department "Art, School of"
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Item Beyond Montmartre and the Avant-Garde: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and the Democratization of Art(2022-05-09) Lovelace, Arabella E.This thesis is a multi-faceted exploration into Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s contribution to the democratization and modernization of art. A variety of factors, such as the artist’s personal rejection of elitism after being abandoned by his upper-class family, his personal affiliation with the intellectual underground of Montmartre, the artist’s mastery of both traditional and novel print media which led to wide street exposure, and his stylistic and strategic uniqueness, make Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec a very important and irreplaceable name in the art historical record when it comes to breaking down barriers that restricted the common citizen’s access to art, as well as setting a unique standard for contemporary art and artists. This thesis seeks to demonstrate these factors in a way that captures a scope that has rarely, if ever, been addressed by prior scholarship. This thesis also seeks to refocus the narrative regarding Lautrec, which is often overlooked or misunderstood.Item Contemp(t)lating(2022-06-13) Huff, Katherine A.The totality of the work in my thesis underscores the processes of my studies as an art student pursuing my undergraduate degree in Painting with a minor in art history. This thesis chronicles two years of my work consisting of portraiture, landscapes, figure drawings, collage, and poetry. I combine collage, oil paint, and other mixed media in an attempt to create a story about my upbringing, current environment, or politics. The inspiration to create works of art is both material-driven, process-driven and conceptual. My interest is to create tension in my works and the ways in which tension, both physically and conceptually, relates to the viewer by incorporating masterful techniques with contemporary concepts. In my landscapes I am interested in the illusion of surrealism and something that is beyond our reality that gives a liberation of the mind, lending to an artistic freedom. Similarly, in experimental works titled ‘A New Frontier’, I incorporate situationist ideals of détournement and the dérive, freeing the artist of limitations culturally and physically. In my poetry, I use language as a medium to create ekphrastic and provisional poetry relating to artworks. In my drawings I incorporate subtractive methods to create works of art built upon old techniques to create something new.Item Data-Morphic Analyzing Approach for Understanding a Tennis Racket: Comparison of Tennis Rackets in UH Tennis Club(2017) Choi, JinyongThe shapes in the beginner group are relatively moderate than other groups. Some similar shapes are found in the intermediate group while extremely sharp shapes appear in the advanced group. I believe the reason that advanced player's shapes are sharper is they understand well about a racket and they choose a racket in a way of maximizing their preference between control and power.Item JANNIS KOUNELLIS, CARLA LONZI AND THE APPROPRIATION OF THE WORKERISM MOVEMENT'S IDEAS IN UNTITLED (12 HORSES) AND AUTORITRATTO(2019-05) Schrripa, GiuliaThe focus of my thesis is the appropriation of the methodology of Workerism in Untitled (12 Horses) by Jannis Kounellis and Autoritratto by Carla Lonzi. The project started out of my curiosity for the history of "poor" material choices of the Greek artist. The turn toward a more sociopolitical analysis was facilitated by the reading of L'orda D'oro, a book about the Italian cultural revolution that coincided with 1968. Through the book, I learned about the concept of con-ricerca, the methodology of the workerism movement. Con-ricerca is based on gathering first-hand experience of factory life and oral interviews of workers. I realized that there were parallels between the methodological approach of con-ricerca and the immersive dialectic that Kounellis established between the viewer of Untitled (12 Horses) and the composition itself and between Carla Lonzi and the artists she interviews in Autoritratto.Item Marking and Meaning(2017) Witucki, DerekArboretum: the inner loop trail is an interpretive sound map of a trail in the Houston Arboretum and Nature Center. It is a form of cognitive map that combines methods from the visual arts to diagrammatically represent the acoustic qualities of the environment. Beneath the surface of the map's specific details is a conversation about abstraction and iteration in graphic design practice.Item Resituating Dorothy Hood in the Art Historical Canon(2023-04-13) Satterwhite, ErinArt history's rigidity is being challenged and dismantled in the 21st century. This allows us to reexamine the careers of significant, innovative artists that have been historically overlooked because they did not snugly fit into a certain genre, art movement, or other limiting form of categorization. One such artist is Dorothy Hood (1918-2000). She was a native Texan and a key bridge between the American and Mexican Modern art movements, as well as the genres of Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism. This paper examines the importance of Hoodï¾’s work and the unique challenges she faced in her career, most likely a cause for the lack of scholarship on her work. She was neither bound by geographical location (moving multiple times in her life: from Texas, to New York, to Mexico, then back to Texas) nor artistic movement (dabbling in Surrealism, collages, and large-scale abstract paintings). It was this two-fold fluidity between space and genre that inevitably hindered her from achieving the status of other artists who were more firmly situated in a particular genre or location. It is essential to continue to shed light on less-recognized female artists, like Dorothy Hood, not only because of their continued minority status in the larger scope of art history, but for the innovations they made in their own rights. With this paper, I hope to contribute more to the necessary scholarship on Dorothy Hood, as well as spark further exploration into the Texan art communities of the 20th century, specifically their female artists.Item Speculative Portraiture: The Imagined Black Body In Contemporary Art(2021) Walls, Jaelynn D.Visual representations of Blackness are ever changing. To visually define African-American identity is to explore decades of imagery both combatting and rejecting negative stereotypes and playing with them to magnify the issues within them. In Speculative Portraiture, I explore the significance of institutionally trained contemporary black American painters utilizing traditionally European narratives to visually represent contemporary black identity through portraiture. Rather than an essentialized definition of blackness, I am interested in identifying it in their works through contemporary theoretical understandings of blackness. From this point, I split the research into three parts: Imagined Black History, The Imagined Black Artist, and Styling Blackness. I use these three categories to examine the works of three artists and their visual interpretations of blackness through the imaginary insertion of black figures in traditional painting styles. While primarily looking to the work of Titus Kaphar, Kerry James Marshall, and Kehinde Wiley, I also thread in other black American artists who are playing with the same flexibility of identity through their works though not necessarily through the medium of painted portraits. I examine these artists and their portraits through the lens of critical race theory in the visual arts by theorists such as Darby English and Franz Fanon to establish a working definition of contemporary black identity and its signifiers. By identifying signifiers, I am able to deconstruct black representation through European visual constructions of the 18th and 19th centuries in a non-abstract way.Item The Ancient Colors in the Public Art of Tenochtitlan(2023-04-13) Santillán, GénesisThe goal of my research was to explore the significance color held in Aztec public art found at Templo Mayor in the city of Tenochtitlan. By studying the coat of paint the monoliths had been covered with in the past, I hoped to discover how color enhanced the experience and meaning of key rituals done in relation to the public art. This research was done to help the public understand how the Aztec's religious beliefs influenced their art and why they expressed it with color. My key source was the 2017 Templo Mayor Museum article “Nuestra Sangre, Nuestro Color: La escultura polícroma de Tenochtitlan'' by Leonardo López Luján which directly speaks on the science behind the new color research for monoliths. However, my project heavily relied on the research done by Diana Magaloni in her book “The Colors of the New World” where she takes a closer look at the Florentine Codex illustrations that reveal to us the indigenous paint-making process. Through my investigation I determined that the significance color has in Aztec art, from their drawings to their monoliths, is based on what raw materials were used and where they originate from. The paints can be categorized into two groups, those made from organic materials which then symbolize the masculine solar world, or pigments that are telluric and are associated with the feminine underworld. The Aztecs would choose which paints to use based on this significance to represent different elements of their religion through their art.Item The Harder They Fall and the Importance of Contemporary Black Storytelling(2023-04-13) Allen, ArreonI explored Black exposure and identity within film, and highlighted the importance of authentic, genuine expression of marginalized voices. I sought to unravel the revitalization of Black consciousness through pop culture in the digital age, as representation is integral for the cultivation of historically underrepresented artforms. American cinema has played a significant role in upholding a certain vision of the country's history, and for a people who've been so vehemently forced into the margins of society, the process of cultural reclamation is vital. Black cinema serves as an avenue for creative expression, cultural affirmation, and a redefinition of liberty in the face of racial discrimination. It has forecast, critiqued, and documented the ever present societal violence of today, while simultaneously challenging America's deeply ingrained prejudices. I closely analyzed Netflix's The Harder They Fall, as it combats otherness and embraces Black exceptionalism. Its art attempts to alleviate the pain from the echoes of oppression in a postcolonial world, shattering barriers placed by a dreadful history of stereotypes. The film is a Black Western: a fantastical revamp sporting a primarily-Black cast, with many of the characters based off of real historical figures. Under the direction of Jeymes Samuel, the film unapologetically bends and reassembles genres within a late 19th century setting. The Harder They Fall and other films of its ilk can't reverse the damage done by the removal of blackness defined by mainstream cinema, though their stylistic freedoms reflect the defiance of contemporary storytelling that is so desperately needed today.Item The Void in Art: Dorothy Hood's Contributions to Modern Art(2023-05-01) Satterwhite, Erin C.Dorothy Hood (August 27, 1919 - October 28, 2000), was a pivotal artist in the American and Mexican Modern art movements. Her work serves as one of, if not the first, bridges between Texan and Mexican modern art. Her vast oeuvre includes drawings and prints, Surrealist-style collages, and expansive paintings. There has been little scholarship on Hood's innovative artistic practice and how it married the figurative, mystical aspects of Mexican Surrealism and the vast expanse and color exploration of New York school painting, while also introducing fresh ideas on what she described as “the void” and internal landscapes as depicted through abstracted forms. This thesis addresses the unique challenge for Hood in her career, caused by her fluidity between physical places and art movements. She was neither bound by geographical location (moving multiple times in her life - from Texas, to New York, to Mexico, then back to Texas) nor artistic style (interested in Surrealism, folk art, large-scale abstract paintings that are formally reminiscent of the New York school). It was this fluidity that inevitably hindered her from achieving the status of other artists who were more firmly, and consistently, situated with a particular movement or location. Hood possessed a unique vision of painting's potential as a portal to the inner psyche, the “void”, and the spiritual power of art. Her influence and contributions positions Hood as one of the greatest Texan artists in modern art history.Item TRANSITIVE HEALING AND THE METAPHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF RELATIONAL AESTHETICS: UNITING AFRICAN ART PHILOSOPHY WITH AVANT GARDE PARTICIPATORY PRACTICE(2019-05) Pickens, CydneyThis essay will examine the critically influential role of pre-colonial African art philosophy and theory on select instances of participatory practice in Modern American and European art. This paper will focus specifically on how modern participatory artists emulate the role of African shamans in their pursuit of socially, politically, and community engaged works of art that emphasize the individual contributions within a larger project or society. African shamans, much like these contemporary artists, were valuable leaders in their community that were able to address complex problems by conducting unique and immersive spiritual experiences for their clients. While these modern artists do not operate in the same facility as the African shamans, the role they fill in urban society is comparable. In addition, this paper will critique certain exhibitions of artists from Africa and/or the diaspora in America and Europe that aim to present African works without little consideration to the interactive element of the object that makes up the metaphysical viewing experience, an essential component of African artistic tradition. Lastly, this paper will investigate criticism that aims to separate participatory practice and similar art forms from the designation of "fine art" and that reduced the aesthetic contributions of social and participatory practice.