Date of Graduation

5-2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts in Art (MFA)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

Art

Advisor/Mentor

King, Sam

Committee Member

Hulen, Jeannie L.

Second Committee Member

Mazow, Leo G.

Third Committee Member

DeWitt, Dylan J.

Keywords

Social sciences; Communication and the arts; Arkansas; Holiness; Ozarks; Painting; Place

Abstract

Throughout her time at the University of Arkansas Master of Fine Arts program, Ashley Byers has been creating work about the folklore, landscape, and people of the Ozarks. Though she continues to create work with the Ozarks in mind, it became a motif used for a broader conversation about the ad hoc, holiness, painting, landscape, the figure, and intimacy.

In many ways, the concepts within her work are born out of the Ozarks.

When can remnants come together to become more than the sum of their parts? Derelict, easily dismissed objects, when set in the right context or viewed through a particular gaze, can have a resonance to them. This installation became a platform for the viewer to think about their relationship to artwork. When is interaction sanctioned and when does physically interacting with the piece seem uncomfortable? There is a suggested narrative within the non-linear work that speaks of the holy and the everyday and how context changes the reception of those things.

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