Art, Art History and Design, School of
First Advisor
Margaret Bohls
Date of this Version
4-2024
Citation
A thesis presented to the faculty of the Graduate College at the University of Nebraska in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts
Major: Art
Under the Supervision of Professor Margaret Bohls
Lincoln, Nebraska, April 2024
Abstract
“or to be eaten alive'' is a multimedia exhibition in which I merge my own coming of age story with a mythological ecology. In this work I reclaim my queer identity by communing with my past selves in a fantasy world created through the lens of Queer Ecology and Queer Eco-Futurism. The visuals in this exhibition obscure reality. They are abstractions of the landscapes I occupy—particularly the Tallgrass prairie and Ozark ecoregions. Through a speculative, fantasy world the exhibition introduces moments of adoration, death, fracturing, growth, joy, and failure. I form, draw, color and arrange the work embracing mistakes and flaws of creation, defying the idea that we must live in a way that is close to a divine perfection. Instead, I redefine divinity as acceptance, imperfection, and mystery. The title, “or to be eaten alive,” asks about choices of fate: Can you run away forever, or will you be eaten alive? What are the consequences of my desire and search for belonging? Additionally, the title of the exhibition also references the visual components of the work in the exhibition, which features fantastical monsters eating, biting, purging, transforming, entangling, caressing and kissing one another. I present the viewer with decadent, colorful, playful, and repaired ceramic sculpture, soft sculpture, drawings, books, sound, animated video projection, and performance. In this immersive, fantastical ecology, the viewer experiences my transformation in an afterlife where I- through fantasy- embrace my past self.
Advisor: Margaret Bohls
Included in
American Art and Architecture Commons, Ceramic Arts Commons, Gender and Sexuality Commons, Human Ecology Commons, Interdisciplinary Arts and Media Commons, Painting Commons, Queer Studies Commons, Sculpture Commons
Comments
Copyright 2024, Christopher Williams. Used by permission