Year of Award

2013

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Other Degree Name/Area of Focus

Painting and Drawing

Department or School/College

School of Art

Committee Chair

Kevin Bell

Commitee Members

Alessia Carpoca, MaryAnn Bonjorni, Trey Hill

Keywords

Aesthetics, Craft, Formalism, Installation, Non-Objective Abstraction, Sculptural Painting

Publisher

University of Montana

Abstract

Color/Shape/Form/Space begins at its title. The show is named with the same directness that I want the work to have: accessible, ready for consumption. Stripped of unnecessary information, the exhibition’s title needed to match the work itself, which expresses minimalistic tendencies, avoiding the superfluous. Everything needed to be consciously put together to operate as a well-designed whole. Simple and clear. It is the age that we live in that prompts me to be so forthright. Our present is defined by attention deficit digital connectivity. Accessibility and information sharing are rampant. With the possibilities being seemingly endless, it is an exciting time to be an artist. However, there too exists the daunting quality of trying to keep up with contemporary culture and the rate at which it expands. My research considers our culture of instant gratification and contemplates how to compete with it. We are consumed by pleasure and the ease of its acquisition. It is my intent to express this via an experience of fabricated eye candy to examine our cultural wants and needs. Color/Shape/Form/Space reclaims the primacy of the formal elements of visual communication. It is an amalgam of sources and ideas that nexus design, craft and fine art. It places fundamental importance on composition, color and spatial integration; and also expresses the immediacy and streamlined efficiency that we desire as contemporary human beings. The final product coalesces objects and their space to create a push-and-pull that is not just pictorial, but sculptural and experiential. I believe this helps to manifest the transcendent and euphoric qualities that I am after.

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© Copyright 2013 Brett James Hargesheimer