What Lies Behind: Speculations on the Real and the Willful

This integrated article thesis has three distinct chapters. Chapter One is an extended artist statement within which the following research questions are extrapolated: In what ways can an art practice question both the limitations of human-centered knowledge and issues of ‘the real’? What roles do both abstraction and representation play within this kind of artistic practice? Descriptions and analyses of my artwork are provided throughout this chapter. Chapter Two is comprised of visual documentation of the artwork I made during my MFA candidacy, accompanied by brief descriptions of each piece. Chapter Three is a case study on the work of San Franciscan artist Trisha Donnelly. I playfully propose that Donnelly’s art has a life of its own, independent of the will that made it. I explain how her artwork invites anthrodecentric interpretation by illustrating its autonomous characteristics through the lenses of autopoiesis and panpsychism.

Name thesis:degree_name

MFA

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Visual Arts

Grantor dc:publisher

The University of Western Ontario

Year dc:date.issued

2014

Author dc:creator

• Hobot, Barbara

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Kelly Jazvac

• Abstraction
• Anthrodecentrism
• Autopoiesis
• Faux painting
• Nothingness
• The Real

Language dc:language.iso

en_ca

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14721/35028

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:uwo.scholaris.ca:20.500.14721/35028