Date of Graduation

5-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts in Art (MFA)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

Art

Advisor/Mentor

Chae, Su

Committee Member

Amirvaghef, Maryam

Second Committee Member

King, Sam

Keywords

Drawing; Expanded Field; Material Agency; Painting; Post-Minimalism; Sculpture

Abstract

Brightly Slacked Tight, It Sways is a body of work that investigates unpredictability and process-based making through collage and materially hybrid forms that combine natural and synthetic elements, operating between drawing, painting, and sculpture. Using familiar, readily available materials gathered from the studio, hardware store, and my surrounding environment, the work embraces improvisation as a generative force. Unpredictability keeps me in relation to the work, interrupting certainty, requiring responsiveness, and mirroring the shifting conditions of the natural world. I break, cut, and recombine sticks gathered from my yard and athletic tape from gymnastics, along with scrap drawings and paintings. Shaped by environmental and bodily histories, these materials form structures and compositions that oscillate between image and object, support and gesture. Rope functions simultaneously as suspension and spatial line, while layered wall collages reveal their objecthood at the edges: paper curls, thread extends beyond its frame, and the buildup of layers becomes visible from the side. Rather than pursuing predetermined outcomes, the work develops through cycles of repetition and return, trusting in the behavior and limits of materials to guide what emerges. Variations in tempo between slow handwork and urgent, instinctive decisions layer time into each piece, allowing gravity, tension, and failure, like moments of redirection or material resistance, to shape the work’s structure. This thesis is situated within expanded medium and post-minimalist conversations, engaging philosophies of material agency and drawing as becoming. It argues for uncertainty as a method of building what holds for now, framing form as provisional and relational, contingent upon material impermanence and spatial conditions. In this way, instability becomes a condition of vitality: if change is unavoidable, why not let it sing?

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