Description
This graduate thesis serves to explain both the conceptual and formal aspects of my creation process. After a brief narrative introduction that defines my overarching impetus to paint in the first place and explains the context in which my work may convey meaning, I begin by providing the scholarly research and popular culture influences that inform the theoretical, historical, and critical backbone of my work. My intellectual scuffles with various contemporary philosophies, metanarratives, and societal paradigms remain largely undecided despite all my research as I have grown increasingly skeptical of embracing labels and -ism’s to describe my own positions. For this reason, I strive to create art that operates within a more analytical and comparative framework rather than from a partisan or emotional stance. I then document the formal process of how I conduct my studio practice, including my decisions on what and how to paint. My artwork is not purposefully aimed at changing anyone or anything per se, but I do hope its jabbing essence provides food for thought and comic relief as we watch the consequential “cultural balloons” I hint at explode and deflate before our very eyes. Finally, I predict the direction of my future conceptual ambitions and describe how my work fits into our present culture and the grander scheme of art history.
