Year of Award

2010

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Other Degree Name/Area of Focus

Painting and Drawing

Department or School/College

Department of Art

Committee Chair

Bobby Tilton

Commitee Members

Kathryn Shanley, Kevin Bell

Keywords

contemporary, drawing, elk, embroidery, feminine, feminine domestic tradition, gendered issues, gendered role, hybridity, lineage, masculine, metaphor, painting, region, rural

Abstract

“I work in the gap between art and life.” So said Robert Rauschenberg, of his own art, decades ago. Little did I know that my experiences in graduate school, and the translation of those experiences into artworks, would be defined by “gaps”: the physical gap of 450 miles, separating me from my husband, the intellectual gap representing the types of conversation I found myself engaging in, the illusive gaps between the different “roles” I have always used to define myself. In the past three years I developed an awareness of my social situation, during which I have found (and continue to find) myself mentally shifting from one foot to the other; always aware of what can and cannot be said, questioning which act is appropriate in which particular situation. The past two (of the last three) years have been spent investigating that space of in-between, the area of middle ground; a place of slight and constant disquiet, both tangible and illusive. The collaged surfaces, embroidered text, drawn elk and carefully rendered forms attempt to describe my understanding of “Inbetween”.

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© Copyright 2010 Cathryn Sugg