The inspiration for my undergraduate body of work is derived from my fascination with Henri Matisse, Jacob Lawrence, and the Impressionists. I suddenly became captivated with the Impressionist movement and the independence of abstraction. I set into motion a series of paintings and drawings featuring random African-Americans and African society representatives in vibrant color and abstracting forms, and was specifically concerned with altering the form outside of the realistic area. While in graduate school, I began to think about how the transformation from realism to abstraction combined with the conception of mortal to the immortal. I worked through ideas to see exactly where these views began, and where they would take me as an artist. Almost immediately I experimented with random figures found specifically in the N'debele culture in South Africa. In addition, I incorporated abstraction and expressive marks within the figure and slowly introduced cut paper, flat imagery and abstraction with the realistic figure. This became very challenging but I was determined to unite these ideas successfully. More recently, my work has concentrated on the essential elements that have influenced my work as an artist, which recedes to childhood. The main elements most prevalent within the work is rhythm …

Man has used graphic signs and symbols to express a variety of thoughts and feelings since before the invention of writing; they have helped him to preserve the ideologies that have enabled him to articulate his conception of the world. Every culture in every historical era has invested the objects, animals and plants around it with a multitude of different psychological meanings to communicate its essential belief systems and social aspirations. In my document, I chose to shed light on the responsibility I believe design educators must assume regarding their ability to understand and teach the importance of how similar graphic signs, symbols, ideograms and icons are perceived differently by different cultures in the hyper-connected, inter-global economy of 21st century. It is very crucial not to discount the influence and correlation of symbolic, fundamental building blocks of design with the basic psychological functions that inform our subconscious, and are also informed by our individual social and cultural upbringings. People from different cultures may cognate these shapes similarly, but they perceive and encode their meanings based on their particular social and cultural influences. One-size-fits-all communication design solutions rarely work, especially when they are distributed to culturally diverse audiences, because various ethnic …

The purpose of this study was to describe the implementation, structure, content and outcome of an art-centered unit developed for 5th grade students. This unit was designed to be an example/model of specific tools and procedures that teachers can use in the art and general classroom to promote critical cultural consciousness, which is the ability to analyze both the covert and overt elements of a culture with the purpose of developing a holistic viewpoint that values the cultural heritages of self and others. The participants selected for this study were all the students in three 5th grade classes. The art-centered unit focused on three artists-Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett and Charles White-under the theme "Respect and Homage." The research methods used in this investigation were qualitative. This study was written in a style that described the research design with its origins, organization and implementation. The implementation of the curricular unit developed for this study took place in the art and general classroom. Of particular interest in this study was the framework and structure of the art-centered unit, designed around two specific strategies utilized to promote critical cultural consciousness. One strategy in this unit was the identification of art-related or art-centered micro-cultures …

This thesis studies the style of Native American portrait photographs of William S. Soule (1836-1908), John K. Hillers (1834-1925), and William E. Irwin (1871-1935), who worked in Oklahoma from 1869 to 1904. The examination of the three men's work revealed that each artist had different motivations for creating Native American portrait photographs, and a result, used a distinct style. However, despite the individual artistic styles, each artist conformed to Native American stereotypes common during the nineteenth-century. The thesis includes a discussion of the history of the area, photographer biographies, a stylistic analysis of the photographs, and how the images fit into American Indian stereotypes.

As China is opening its doors to the world and getting more involved in the global market, it is facing great challenges and competition with other countries and cultures. In order to make Chinese graphic design industry more competitive and help Chinese businesses and industries have better success in the global market, I believed Chinese college-level design educators and students should learn more from advanced American graphic design processes and marketing methods to achieve a better understanding of Western design culture and make communication more successful. At the same time, I believed American college-level graphic design educators and students should become aware of strengths and weaknesses that exist in their own design education and learn from Chinese formal tradition.

This thesis identifies and analyzes gendering in the art writing devoted to Lee Bontecou's metal and canvas sculptures made from the 1959 - 1964. Through a careful reading of reviews and articles written about Bontecou's constructions, this thesis reconstructs the context of the art world in the United States at mid-century and investigates how cultural expectations regarding gender directed the reception of Bontecou's art, beginning in 1959 and continuing through mid-1960s. Incorporating a description of the contemporaneous cultural context with description of the constructions and an analysis of examples of primary writing, the thesis chronologically follows the evolution of a tendency in art writing to associate gender-specific motivation and interpretation to one recurring feature of Bontecou's works.

Informed by the methodology utilized in Peter Williams's Houses of God: Region, Religion, and Architecture in the United States (1997), the thesis examines Mark Lemmon's Gothic Revival design for the Highland Park Presbyterian Church (1941) with special attention to the denomination and social class of the congregation and the architectural style of the church. Beginning with the notion that Lemmon's church is more complex than an expression of the Southern cultural region defined by Williams, the thesis presents the opportunity to examine the church in the context of the unique cultural region of the city of Dallas. Church archival material supports the argument that the congregation deliberately sought to identify with both the forms and ideology of the late nineteenth-century Gothic Revival in the northeastern United States, a result of the influence of Dallas's cultural region.

Organic forms representing nature, but not particular species, are combined with elements signifying attitudes toward the natural world with an emphasis on North American culture. The viewer is encouraged to consider human effects on the environment. Aquarium Night Light and Trophy both refer to the human tendency for commercial exploitation coupled with the creation of nature images we sometimes seem to prefer over the reality of the natural world. Reliquary metaphorically connects traditional religious connotations associated with saints' relics to both a biblical injunction to use anything we needed from the natural world and our contemporary belief that exposure to nature can have beneficial effects on human mental, spiritual, and physical health.

This thesis redresses the lack of scholarly attention paid to painted circus banners produced in the United States during the first half of the twentieth century by exploring the extent to which American folk art painting scholarship, methodologies, and objects can be used to articulate the meaning and significance of banner painting. This study expands the disciplinary treatment of banner painting by introducing domesticated art as a means of representing non-academic art produced in the U.S. The thesis also presents a model for exploring banner painting after identifying traditional American folk art painting methodologies, which fail to investigate banner painting style, format, and artistic training associated with banner work.

This thesis examines similarities in photographs made by the contemporary photographer Keith Carter and photographers active with the Farm Security Administration during the 1930s. Stylistically and in function, works by Carter and these photographers comment on social and cultural values of a region. This thesis demonstrates that many of Carter's black and white photographs continue, contribute to, and expand traditions in American documentary photography established in the 1930s. These traditions include the representation of a specific geographic place that evokes the spirit of a time and place, and the ability to communicate to a viewer certain social conditions and values related to such a place.

This thesis is an investigation of the way in which the painter May Stevens (b. 1924) synthesizes her personal experiences and political philosophy to form complex and enduring works of art. Primary data was accumulated through an extended interview with May Stevens and by examining her works on exhibit in New York and Boston. An analysis of selected works from her "Big Daddy" and "Ordinary/Extraordinary" series revealed how her personal feelings about her own family became entwined with larger political issues. As an important member of the feminist art movement that evolved during the 1970s, she celebrated this new kinship among women in paintings that also explored the contradictions in their lives. In more recent work she has explored complex social issues such as teenage prostitution, sexism, and child abuse in a variety of artistic styles and media. This study investigates how May Stevens continues to portray issues of international significance in works that consistently engage the viewer on a personal, almost visceral level.

This article discusses the way people experience the landscape. Tracing the progress of landscape photography from the late nineteenth century to the present, the author introduces the way concepts in landscape photography have changed. The author's photographs are discussed regarding how they build on the foundation of this historical precedent. Using photographs of individuals at places they think are special, the author examines their perception of landscape. The positions and actions of the subjects shape the way their attitudes are conveyed. The concept of beauty is discussed as it relates to the appreciation of landscape. By discussing with the subjects why these places are special and photographing with the intent to convey what those reasons are, the author's photographs examine the relationship of people to the landscape.

Chapter I describes how my works are grounded in a Chinese point of view, based on sociological and anthropological approaches as defined in my work. The questions in my Statement of Problem deal with how I use "imbalance" in my works, yet still find a way to make acceptable compositions to better tell my stories. I relate how my work constitutes a positive act or event in an evolving world culture. Chapter II discusses the work I focused around the questions posed in Chapter I. Chapter III expresses my conclusion about my work and my goals for the future.

Through the use of a feminist methodology, this qualitative case study examines the influence a high school art teacher, Pauline Gawlik, had on the career path of a group of her students, a high percentage of whom are Mexican American and/or of low socioeconomic status. Interviews of the teacher and seven of her former students revealed five themes related to the teacher's practice that affected her students' choice to become art teachers themselves: a positive classroom climate, confidence and focus, mutual respect and admiration, care, and mentoring. The results of this study hold implications for the current teacher shortage and the recruitment of Mexican American students into careers in art education.

This paper documents the execution and exhibition of a group of oil paintings exploring themes of spectacle and the construction of reality in contemporary American society. The paintings are composed of figures and fragments of text originating in stills taken from television news and reality TV. This paper describes and assesses the paintings according to a set of questions developed by the artist at the inception of the project. Various strategies employed in the execution of the work are analyzed and compared. The contribution of this project to the field of contemporary visual art is evaluated via comparison with other art, past and present, expressing similar concerns.

This thesis examines images of women shopping in the art of Kenneth Hayes Miller and Reginald Marsh during the 1920s and 1930s. New York City's Fourteenth Street served Kenneth Hayes Miller and Reginald Marsh, respectively, as a location generating the inspiration to study and visually represent its contemporaneity. Of particular interest to this thesis are relationships between developments in shopping and the images of women shopping in and around Fourteenth Street that populate the paintings of Miller and Marsh. Although, as Ellen Todd Wiley has shown, the emerging notion of the New Woman helped to shape female identity at this time, what remains unstudied are dimensions that geographically specific, historical developments in shopping contributed to the construction of female identity which, this thesis argues, Marsh and Miller related to, by locating in, the department store and bargain store.

The working cowboy remains part of the contemporary culture of Texas. A visual record of him appeared early in the state's history, in daguerreotypes, followed by representations in contemporary black and white as well as color photographs, film and video. Although the way of life for the Texas cowboy has changed, it remains a thriving part of the Texas economy, society, and culture. Moreover, the image of the cowboy has permeated popular culture and fine art. This paper explores what late twentieth century popular culture and fine art images of the cowboy signify, emphasizing aspects of how they signify in relation to an existing tradition of photographic representations. Using Barthes' "Myth Today," it considers how the documentary aspect of early photographic representations of cowboys is transformed in contemporary popular culture and fine art to become mythology, for example, by the exaggeration of features of dress to connote ideals allegorically.

The purpose of this thesis is to give a concise view of stylistic, iconographical, and iconological trends in Southern genre paintings and illustrations between 1830 and 1890 by native Southern artists and artists who lived at least ten years in the South. Exploration of artworks was accomplished by compiling as many artworks as possible per decade, separating each decade by dominant trends in subject matter, and researching to determine political and/or social implications associated with and affecting each image. Historical documents and the findings of other scholars revealed that many artworks carried political overtones reflecting the dominant thought of the white ruling class during the period while the significance and interpretation of other artworks was achieved by studying dominant personal beliefs and social practices.

The first segment introduces the background information on the use of paños as art by prisoners and how I appropriate the same materials to create and record my own cultural mythology. The Statement of Problem and Questions are about how and what cultural information is chosen in creating a visual mythology. The second segment explains the invention of the mythology by describing why certain experiences were chosen, specifically those of the graduate school experience. Also the development of self-representation through self-portraits is described. The third segment explains the symbolism used in the imagery, such as the cacti as cultural indicator and palimpsest. The fourth segment is a conclusion involving the realization that feeling caught within a hybrid culture is an important part of my identity.

This thesis covers a series of etchings created between 1998 and 2000 in completion of the requirements for graduation. The paper covers the origins and implications of the symbology within the artwork as well as the natural settings displayed. It also speaks of the mythos of art and symbols, as well as my strategy in Art making.

Using this conflict between death and dying versus hope and new life, I searched for an undogmatic way to convey a Christian antidote to the despair and ugliness of post modern art. The struggle was to find the imagery, format, and media combinations to express a vision, with realism and hope, for the late twentieth century, in a unique and interesting context.

This study explored the current status of Turkish basic art education and the objectives of the first year art program at the university level in Turkey. Also, the researcher attempted to explore the objectives and expectations of Turkish art professors and to examine the applicability of certain concepts of American basic design education in the teaching of studio foundation courses in Turkish art schools. The study included the literature review concerning changes in educational philosophy related to the history of design education in the West and in Turkey.

This study follows the progress of 11 elementary students who exhibited similar language-arts deficiencies and were treated with traditional and non-traditional language-arts remediation methods. Non-traditional methods were exclusively Discipline-Based Art Education (DBAE) lessons that required students to observe, talk about, and write about art images using a DBAE framework. Portfolios maintained by the students during one complete school year included writings and art production. Writings were marked using a color-coding system developed for the research project and designed to track growth in art cognition. Interviews for affective measure and the Test of Non-Verbal Intelligence, Edition II were administered as pre- and post-tests. Evidence indicated art understanding improved as cognition in language arts improved. Change in attitudes toward art and artists demonstrated a slight positive change. No significant difference was detected in non-verbal intelligence.

The Universalis Ecclesiae of 1508 authorized Spanish colonization of the Americas in return for the conversion of native populations to Christianity. From its inception therefore, the Mexican nation lived an alliance between Church and State. This alliance promoted the transfer of Castilian Catholicism to American shores. Catholic practices, specifically the ex-voto tradition, visualize this intermingling of religion and politics. The ex-voto is a devotional painting that expresses gratitude to a religious figure for his/her intervention in a moment of peril. It is commissioned by the devotee as a means of direct communication to the divine. This project analyzes 40 Mexican ex-votos for their reflection of political issues in Mexico. I assert that the Mexican ex-votos engage discussions of social politics. To support this argument, visualizations of socio-political discourses such as the Virgin of Guadalupe as a national religious symbol, police action and economic disparity were examined.