The Ephemerality of the Living and the Persistence of the Inanimate

<p>I create fragile, sculptural works with paper. Either cast from pre-existing objects or constructed forms, my three-dimensional works ultimately become pure paper objects. I use the visual language of absence, memory, ruin and ephemerality to present modern artifacts and address the now. I am interested in how the manufactured crumbs we leave behind as a species reveal our collective desires, and our relationship to the body and mortality. I am fascinated with, and even enchanted by, the proliferation of material objects and their tendency to surpass the lifespan of any single human. Perhaps this behavior of producing lasting creations is somehow a way to defer an acceptance of our own disappearance. By translating material remnants into delicate paper shells, I explore the tension between the ephemerality of the living and the everlasting persistence of the inanimate. </p> <p>I combine imagery and material sourced from machinic, bodily, living, dead, non-human animal and human domains and blend them into a state of atemporal ambiguity. Salvaged artifacts originating from multiple generations function as temporary armatures for my cast paper sculptures. I choose objects that connote the body in utility and form, and animal figures that are represented as objects, ruins, or human projections. By sourcing images from cemeteries and infusing materials with dead matter, I create connections to the departed. I am interested in how commonplace objects function as prosthetics to breach biological and social limitations, and the way in which they expedite the reciprocal process of human domestication.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Visual Art

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Graduate School of Art

Year dc:date.available

2022

Author dc:creator

• Johnston, Erin

Contributors dc:contributor

• Arnold Nadler
• Cheryl Wassenaar
• Thomas Reed

• ephemerality in art
• paper art
• absence in art
• natural dye
• contemporary art
• HamiltonBeach Blender
• object-body relationship
• specimen preparation
• object taxonomy
• quadrupeds
• Art and Design
• Art Practice

Language dc:language

English

DOI

https://doi.org/10.7936/tzjc-vp43

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:openscholarship.wustl.edu:mfa_visual_art-1002