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 …

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.

The reason for this paper is to present a study of several commercial clear sprays used to affect drying of artists' oil paint. A number of tests were conducted in order to discover which spray might achieve optimum drying without inhibiting creative efforts. After the initial experiments, or "test panels," the information derived was used to complete the remaining panels required for the creative project.

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.

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.

The problem being considered in this paper is the alienation of the general viewer from contemporary art. Modern art has become less understandable than ever before to the non-art audience because it has, in many cases, ceased to deal with human-oriented subject matter, and has become detached from life. This paper examines ways in which modern art might be made more accessible to the world through the artists' use of emotion, intuition, intelligence, and other Humanistic elements as content for paintings. It contains a four-part proposal of what Humanist art is. The basic form is the use of rhetorical questions about modern art, leading one to more questions and to a broader, more open-minded attitude toward modern art.

Most of my childhood was spent in either the expansive suburbs of north Texas or on a farm in southern Oklahoma. The experience of growing up in these two regions has done much to shape my sense of aesthetic. From these early experiences, I have developed two completely divergent ideas of beauty which I've tried to reconcile in my artwork. The first influence is that of sparseness, simplicity and the commonplace. This influence comes from the emptiness of the suburban landscape, the sameness of its architecture and the need to find beauty in mundane things as a simple cure for boredom. The second major idea is centered around peculiarity, chaotic complexity and irrationality. This interest originally stems from early memories of my grandfather, whose experiences in Oklahoma during the Great Depression gave him the obsessive habit of never discarding anything for fear that he might need it some day. The complexity in meaning that comes from unfamiliar combinations has allowed the ideas in my work a kind of ambiguity that frees it from any singular reading. I think the content of my work could best be described as constructions of memories, experiences and influences. I never speak about any one …

Modernist painters such as Picasso, Ernst and Matisse were among others who incorporated what was then considered "primitive" art, mostly from Africa and Oceania, into their works. Prior to this, European artists had appropriated Greco-Roman themes and characters. These appropriated elements were consequently recreated without their cultural context and content, altered to reflect more current themes. In most cases, attention was directed toward the recreator, the author of the new work of art, not the creator of the artifact. In contrast, Post-Modern artists, including myself, have reproduced appropriated elements virtually unaltered as a way of denying authorship and emphasizing a more conceptual format. Appropriated imagery has been a tool for me in my work. Additionally, both figurative and abstract elements play significant roles since I consider juxtaposition of elements to be a strength. The challenge of fitting these elements together has enabled me to develop a style of painting that seems uniquely mine. The formal issues of style and content figure heavily in my endeavor to capture a moment in time; something lost forever except for its persistence in memory. These reflections are often imbued with personal icons, arcane text and symbolic drawing that weave in and out of the …

I believe that our individual religious experiences are just that, individual. Each of us has a different reaction to every narration, sermon, situation, and experience. Further, I believe these experiences are understood and maintained in or through abstract thought. In the parable of Jonah and the whale, what do you picture while reading the story? Most of what took place lacks any physical evidence of existence. The voice of the Spirit, the face of God, the sound of prayer in multitude, even the person begin swallowed by the fish, are all abstract in character. My paintings are visual investigations into the idea that most of our religious experiences and concepts are abstract in nature, thought, and experience. Continuing my exploration of how my specific Christian experiences can be expressed through abstract painting, I investigated how the placement of the ellipse or ellipses as a dividing line affects the field and how surface development, layering and the expressiveness of high intensity colors affected the specific experience or Biblical narrative chosen.

Work of art of oil on canvas by artist Hannah Aaron as part of a 2020 MFA Exhibition, entitled "A Narrative Rewritten"

Work of art of oil on canvas by artist Hannah Aaron as part of a 2020 MFA Exhibition, entitled "A Narrative Rewritten"

Work of art of oil on canvas by artist Hannah Aaron as part of a 2020 MFA Exhibition, entitled "A Narrative Rewritten"

Work of art of Ballpoint Pen by artist Jordan Black as part of a 2020 MFA Exhibition, entitled "Heeding the Underbelly"

Rainbows, Stones and Ghosts is a two-part exhibition of multi-dimensional drawings about the almost and the not-yet-made. My Project-in-Lieu-of Thesis exists physically as a series of oil paintings, works on paper, and a site-specific sculptural installation. With recurring imagery of rainbows, stones, and construction debris, the works reimagine their subjects as icons and objects of potential. Highlighting time, labor, and material, my project questions the creation of value, status, and the concept of the ‘ideal’. My drawings dissolve the boundary between the absence and presence by continuously breaking down, expanding, and reimagining their surfaces, subjects, and sites. Rainbows, Stones and Ghosts is an invitation to navigate the ‘almost’ as an immersive space of possibility.

Since my youth in Ukraine, I have been inspired by the first cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, who went to outer space in April 1961. Since then I have been imagining the fragments of an unknown space that is divided into a variety of different felt locations. I am interested in envisioning fractured terrains, where the intrusion of sharp elements interact with a soft transparent and atmospheric space. I want to create a sense of discord as a metaphorical reflection on the absurd, political situation in Ukraine where I am originally from. For me, navigating or transitioning from one imaginary space to another through the act of making painting feels equivalent to experiencing a new place for the first time.

Through painting, I use materiality to describe the material world. By rooting my practice in visual culture and art history, I seek to extend the meaning of images beyond their initial form. The coalescing of opposing and complimentary formal elements accentuate the visual and contextual friction. This allows the work to exist in an ambiguous state. Seen together, my works appear disparate, but they suggest alternative meanings through association with one another. The works can exist on their own, but engage in dialogue when juxtaposed against each other. Although about specific occurrences, the works afford the viewer their own interpretations.

Black’s work presents The Ubiquitous, an entity that propagates into subhuman beings that ravage the deserts in search of sacrificial circles or homing beacons. Their physical nature is heavily influenced by: Languid, liquid human body language; the otherworldly visage and tenacity of plant life; the heaving monstrosity of mountains and rock formations; and the joyous allegory of movie monsters, puppets, and pulp fantasy. The Ubiquitous is explored in Black’s whimsical writings and intensive drawings which are characterized by her mark’s immediacy; and her work seeks to understand this Being’s purpose, function, and correlation to her own life..

Brief Artist Statement by Randal Robins as part of a 2021 MFA Exhibition, entitled "Interiority” in the Cora Stafford Gallery on the campus of the University of North Texas on March 15-25, 2021.

My artwork is a record of mundane yet impactful experiences of everyday life. The subject of memory and my interest in pictorial space create a visual narrative of the physical and metaphorical ways I navigate the world. I envision space as sometimes a place of comfort, or at times a souvenir of a distant event. Through my paintings, I process and rediscover the past through the intimacy and tactility of mark-making. Each work presents a bittersweet narrative where I examine the complex circumstances that have brought me to a specific moment in time.

Artist Statement from the MFA Exhibition: "In my recent work, I have expanded upon the deconstruction, reconstruction, and reflection that has informed my artistic process for many years. My working method involves using remnants from previous works; they reappear in their original form or are reworked, aged destroyed, or recreated from different materials. My Process allows me to illustrate the passage of time as older work takes on new forms in a renewed context. New connections begin to surface as my paintings and accompanying objects are layered into a work about the passage of time as well as other passages; a migratory mentality know to all who live away from home."

Works of art on mixed media by artist Victoria Gonzales as part of a 2022 MFA exhibition, entitled "Into a Spacious Place" in the Cora Stafford Gallery South, 1201 W Mulberry St, Denton, TX 76201, from April 20 to 23, 2022.

In my work, I create collections of small objects from a variety of materials and curate them into a larger composition in space. These objects are made from clay, wood, paint, sand, beads, cardboard, paper, yarn, tape, and other materials. I arrange these objects into a composition that is informed by painting, which manifests as the wall and floor serving as substrate, along with vinyl shapes delineating areas of the painting as a whole. In these arrangements I aim to break away from taught boundaries in regards to physical space and expectations of familiar materials.

In A Narrative Rewritten, I explore two distinct periods of my past. One group of work deals with the emotional effects of trauma I experienced as a child during years of practicing ballet. The other celebrates a pivotal moment of spiritual awakening that gave me the strength to confront internal falsehoods I previously developed. I paint from observation, to engage with my subject and to ground myself in the present moment. In my oil paintings, I paint representationally, while delving in to the spectrum of abstraction. I use imagery symbolically from ballet and boxing to represent a shift from inadequacy to empowerment.

I have impulses to make things, sometimes the idea happens prior to its construction, sometimes it happens after. I doubt the presumption of art's ability to save or better people, which creates for me, a conflicted relationship with art-making. I think in most cases, the best it can do is attract people's interest for a moment or so, to the extent that they feel compelled to see it again. Upon those sentiments I make things that provoke a thought or pleasure in myself that I hope other people can relate to. That seems to me to be the bitch of subjective activities. You do what you feel but are never quite sure how it's felt.