Date of Award
12-2008
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Legacy Department
Visual Arts
Committee Chair/Advisor
Detrich, David
Committee Member
Feeser , Andrea
Committee Member
Hung , Christina
Committee Member
McDonald , Todd
Abstract
In this body of work I interweave elements of the Catholic Rite of Reconciliation and that of the domestic realm to explore the tension between idealistic expectations within American culture and the imperfect realities of everyday life. I chose to create a sculptural installation for its unique ability to allow the audience to be immersed in its visual and conceptual questions. By drawing on my own experience of struggling to fulfill an ideal, the work should encourage my audience to consider the wide range of social tensions that they themselves are faced with.
My installation is deeply engaged in the symbols, materials and themes that derive from my exposure to Catholicism. I employ a highly patterned activity, either within the process of fabrication or the final product, to suggest to the viewer that the work is rooted in rituals.
The ambivalent state between anxiety and reassurance is a key component to the work. The structure and arrangement of elements in a seemingly unstable manner imbues the installation with a sense of anxiety that many people experience when trying to achieve societal expectations. However, at the same time beautiful and intimate forms ask the viewer to consider this as a sacred or other worldly location reassuring the viewer that the ideas are based in cultural myth.
Recommended Citation
Garrett, Jeanine, "Mother Load" (2008). All Theses. 528.
https://open.clemson.edu/all_theses/528