Refigured: Separations in Portraiture

Author

Caroline MyersFollow

Date of Award

5-2023

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Department

Art

Committee Chair/Advisor

Todd McDonald

Committee Member

Beth Lauritis

Committee Member

Anderson Wrangle

Abstract

Utilizing traditional painting techniques embedded with digital syntaxes, Refigured: Separations in Portraiture, serves as a catalog of my experiences with communication in a hyperconnected world. Processing illegible information caused by my hearing loss informs the process of imposing similar boundaries within my paintings. Like a technical glitch, these obstructions create an illegible visual experience, with evidence of my process remaining as a clue for the viewer’s understanding of the image.

Though personal in nature, I expand from my experience with auditory communication to employ pertinent explorations into the sustained unpredictability of today’s ever-expanding medium that is technology. My paintings of my friends and family confront the viewer with a recognizable occurrence—a failing image. Taking images from my technologically mediated interactions, motifs such as pixels, blurred backgrounds, and saturated color reference the glitches experienced in digital communications. Manipulations allow me to interrogate the ability of images to facilitate our understanding of another person, with distortions serving to represent qualities of the subject’s identity and my relationship with them. Each portrait sees the collaboration between analog and digital elements that highlight juxtapositions such as surface quality and legibility. These glitches overwhelm the portraits of my loved ones, symbolizing the dissipating border between the physical and virtual spaces that we operate within.

Recommended Citation

Myers, Caroline, "Refigured: Separations in Portraiture" (2023). All Theses. 4045.
https://open.clemson.edu/all_theses/4045