Date of Award
12-2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Department
Art
Committee Chair/Advisor
Kathleen Thum
Committee Member
Todd McDonald
Committee Member
Beth Lauritis
Abstract
My thesis work considers the presence of objectifying gazes in representations of women in Western visual media and pop culture. I reference film, television, short form content shared on social media, and pornography to identify and repurpose tools of objectification in my large scale drawings and animated GIFs. I compare the objectifying tropes present in contemporary entertainment media and pop culture to those present in the Western art historical tradition of the reclining female nude, mythology and folklore, and pornography. Using these comparisons, I discuss objectification in terms of passive and active, consumption and appetite, and idealization and devaluation. I consider how the messages supported by objectifying media can impose gendered standards of behavior, as women are expected to conform their appearance and conduct to heteronormative, male- centric desires in order to be accepted in patriarchal spaces.
Works on paper in my thesis exhibition are most often produced through application of mixed media practices, including a combination of acrylic paint, soft pastel, and graphite to produce a range of visual effects. Short- form, animated GIFs are either digitally drawn 2D stop motion using a stylus on a tablet, or are puppet style animations sourced from scans of my own drawings and then digitally manipulated. Both works on paper and digital animations are constructed through observational drawing practices. I use photographic and film practices to capture images of my body to serve as references for my observational drawing practice.
My drawings and animations are all self- representational. I draw my own body as a means of deconstructing objectification by maintaining autonomy over how I am depicted. My self- representations all contain fidelity to my observed form; specificity to my body allows me to be recognizable in the work as an individual, rather than a generalized image of a woman. My drawing and animation practices utilizes flattening and distortion of perspective, unnatural color, and visual absurdity crafted through monstrous and fantastical imagery. I use drawn and animated transformations to assign characteristics of fictional characters to my own body, constructing drawn personae through fictionalized representations of myself. By attributing characteristics of objectifying trope to my self- representations, I identify my personal internalization of objectifying gazes and reappropriate trope to deconstruct objectification. I harness visual irrationality by constructing contradictory narratives, using visual language of the unreal and uninhabitable through tropes of the theatrical, fantastical, artificial, and unidentifiable to depict fictional, constructed versions of myself. I equivocate through irrationality as it is crafted by contradiction and ambiguity in my visual narratives. This equivocation is both critical and humorous, as I use equivocation to delight in the absurdity of these irrational narratives, and relate this absurdity to my personal attempts to conform to an unattainable ideal, and the frustrations and lack of reconciliation I have experienced in doing so. Humor plays an important role in my thesis work, as it allows me to mitigate the harmful effects of objectification through deconstructive joy, satire, and levity.
Recommended Citation
Smith, Jennifer E., "Harnessing Irrationality" (2025). All Theses. 4668.
https://open.clemson.edu/all_theses/4668