That Which Is There: MFA Thesis - Drawing and Painting

Abstract

Light exposes the contradiction between materiality and invisibility. I explore the impression of nuanced spaces and notions of illusion to suspend optical perceptions of spatial temporality. Using light to alter visual experience, regardless of how physical objects structure boundaries, I illuminate our consciousness of these subtle shifts and how they transform perception and thought. Light, shadow, reflections, and shifting impressions are tools that I use to generate a new sensation of space and time constructs — between the physical nature of the external world as we perceive it and our cognitive processes. I research and experiment with perception, specifically within the philosophical framework of Phenomenology. Evidence of other dimensions is readily available, though not fully integrated into our consciousness that visualizes and responds to the corporeal world and the visible spectrum of light. The dynamic shifts that alter our cognitive perception remain the overall impulse for my projects. Manipulating light and shadows through original 3D printed structures, a variety of glass lenses, and constructive elements such as wood, I frame immaterial phenomena and encourage the sensation of illusory dimensions.