M.F.A. - Art

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10125/594

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 95

Texture of time
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2025) Megahy, Hala; Taylor, Brad E.; Art
Texture of Time is an exploration of my personal experience of time, lensed through my own body, arguing that time is a personal experience measured through various facets. Three bodies of work display time: one through the lifetime of a menstruating individual, one through the physical experience of my own sexual partners in conversation and mourning of my mother’s, and one displaying the entirety of my journaling practice bookended by attempts at my own life. Each of these pieces mark different chapters in my timeline. These reflections of timekeeping are created through a varietal mix of media, including: cast glass menstrual cups, a bronze death mask, linen-sheet tapestries, video projection, and representational ceramic tubes. The works explore a variety of personal lived experiences including: suicide and self-harm, sexual experiences and the relationship between a mother and daughter beyond the vale of death, the natural rhythms of menstruation and how time can be measured.
Near miss [afterimage]
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2025) Connelly, Rosemary; Groeniger, Scott D.; Art
An exploration of residual energetic landscapes influenced by past traumas. Landscapes in my work are places that encompass both the tangible and intangible, and which cross fluidity between the natural and supernatural worlds. Near Miss [afterimage] is an installation of manipulated photographs responding to the power of the natural environment. My goal with this project is to blend the natural and supernatural worlds into one hybrid landscape, blurring the lines between human and nonhuman, and dissolving the boundary between the man-made world and the natural world.
Invisible landscapes
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2025) Sakurai, Hiroko; Monakhov Stockton, Yola; Art
My artistic practice is rooted in exploring the hidden meanings of nature. Mountains, sky, rivers and trees compose a landscape that appears balanced and simply beautiful to the eye. However, beneath this surface, billions of organisms, normally imperceptible to human vision, interact to maintain the environment as a whole. This invisible aspect is integral to the landscape’s beauty, yet this beauty is not without complexity. Seemingly idyllic trees might be invasive species, and the refreshing scent of soil might carry a trace of pollution, same as in our lives and in the lives of other creatures. This exhibition, Invisible Landscapes, explores these unseen dimensions through an installation consisting of two folding screens and one wall installation with mixed media sculptures. Each work examines different “invisible” concepts: micro and macro scale through references to scientific imagery, play between actual facts of existence of microbes and the landscapes in people’s minds, and the underground world explored as stratum of lives, cultures and history.Among these works, three diverse “invisible landscapes” converge to create an environment, a space we can walk through, similar to what we might experience in a garden. My process intertwines traditional technique with intuitive, sometimes accidental approaches, incorporating repurposed materials such as folding screens, layered mulberry paper, mineral pigments, and kimono fabric. The paper layers I create result from a meticulous and repetitive process. This serves as a metaphor for the layered complexities of culture, society, and memory. It is my hope that Invisible Landscapes may offer alternative ways for viewing the world around us across scales and perspectives, thus inspiring deeper contemplation of our interconnectedness with the natural world.
Suspended Moments
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2024) battan, enrico gino; Mills, Rick L; Art
What does a memory look like? If you could capture an image of the intricate network of consciousness that makes up memory, what would it look like? How does a memory change over time? What material would be best to capture that change? What material would allow for artistic expression to be captured, manipulated, and transformed in the way that memory is? The answer for my thesis exhibition, Suspended Moments, is glass. Using glass as a medium to portray memory and its decomposition allows for a visceral understanding of the fragility and impermanence of our memories. It evokes emotions related to vulnerability, transience, and the inevitable march of time.
FOR THE FUTURE: GENEALOGIES OF RESISTANCE IN HAWAIʻI
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2024) matsuda, mari j.; Groeniger, Scott; Art
This thesis discusses an MFA exhibition of five woodcut relief prints that depict moments in Hawaiʻi history when people used their bodies in political action. This written thesis describes the 5 prints, discussing the choice of medium and technique in art historical context, and examining the social and historical circumstances that have created a geneaology of struggle in Hawaiʻi. Included are discussion of the challenges facing the artist, the relation between art and politics, and performance aspects of the art exhibit.
Mindscape
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2024) Sullivan, Erik Ryan; Kawabata, Wendy; Art
N/A
Atlas of the Disappearing
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2021) Fedorov, Ava; Drexler, Debra; Art
The idea of loss and disappearance as it relates to the natural world and the climate crisis is a paradox: even as science proves the ecological threat is both intimate and universal, that very threat essentially becomes abstract. Reflective of this existential duplicity, all of the paintings in this body of work are large, abstract diptychs. My art practice embraces the necessary diametric experience of nature and climate cataclysm in order to offer pathways of understanding, collective mourning, and conceptual adaptation and reevaluation. I use both lyricism and abstraction to conjure the inverted pain of only realizing the vast importance of something (in this case, life on earth as we know it) the moment it vanishes. The fragmentation of this awareness is demonstrated in the physical and implied layering in my paintings. Embedded topographies portray the concept of landscape as both the historical and the emotionally cognitive embodiment of anthropogenic damage. Beyond a means of navigation and documentation, this Atlas expresses the overlaid arrangements that comprise transforming landscapes. Looming shadows, ghost formations, cascading light, and torn paper cutouts conjure entities that are diachronically expressed—still fathomable and tangible while also being irretrievably lost.
Pag+mul+mula+an: an Ilokano Place of Planting
(University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 2020) Goldschmidt, Rebecca Maria; Ferreira, Jose; Chan, Gaye; Art
Pag+mul+mula+an is an alternative place of learning and an in-between space - part-school, part-garden, and part domestic sphere - that allows for the dialogic recovery and sharing of ancestral knowledge. It is a place of rest and rejuvenation, learning and unlearning that fuses the methodology of auto-ethnography with participatory art practice. I center my personal experience in reclaiming the Ilokano language while also inviting the viewer into socially-engaged interactions. I begin at the site of self and migrant family history and our position in overlapping histories of resistance to American imperialism and white supremacy. Incorporating aesthetic explorations of this journey via photography, fibers, weaving, and print, my MFA exhibition, Pag+mul+mula+an, brings to light some of the more insidious obstacles of historical racism, assimilation and cultural erasure faced by Filipinos in Hawai'i and the United States. Drawing on notions of aesthetic hybridity based in borderlands theory, this space is an amalgamation of personal memory, stereotype, and natural materials. Viewers lounge on patchwork cushions made of traditional handwoven fabrics mismatched with vintage floral textiles while watching short films about rice. Large weavings of scavenged plant material provide a backdrop for a plant-medicine workshop. Historical images of American-style classrooms in the Philippines remind us of the legacy of institutional education on our minds and bodies, while a self-published book of writings by participating artists and educators features land-based thinking influencing the project. Great care is given not only to the construction of the space itself, but also the social interactions necessary for the work to come together as a whole - elements are borrowed, collectively created, and collaboratively engaged. The entire exhibition puts into practice the most essential focus of my research: where and how collective living can work in unison with the natural world.
Openings
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2008-12) Jones-Lillie, Michelle; Mills, Richard L.
My Master of Fine Arts thesis exhibition, Openings, entailed two thematically connected, but spatially separate installations: a sculpture trail and gallery installation, both of which opened to the public on the evening of Thursday, August 28, 2008. Two years earlier, I camped in the forest along Tantalus Arboretum Trail for one week and kept a detailed journal of my dreams. Over the course of the next 24 months, I translated the dreams into three-dimensional form, which changed their sensual tangibility. The culmination of this study, a series of sculptural works, has become, in part, a permanent installation along the hiking trail where the dreams were realized and recorded. The purpose was to create a truly site-specific sculptural installation derived from communicative dream experiences from the site. The gallery component of my thesis exhibition was a multi-media installation held in the Commons Gallery at the Department of Art and Art History, University of Hawaii, at Manoa. This installation provided the audience with a sensory experience that aimed to demystify some of the inner workings of my mind when I was engaged in the creative process, in particular, when I created the site-specific sculpture trail. An opening performance initiated the entire event. This performance took place in the gallery at 6:00 p.m. and buses transported all of the guests to and from the sculpture trail from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m.
Liminal Matter
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2022) Everett, Jacob James; Drexler, Debra; Art
Liminal Matter investigates the industrial landscape as a permanent state of liminality. Broken down into three main bodies—The Doors of Separation, The Limen, and The Vehicles of Initiation—the exhibition is physically characterized by discarded matter that facilitates a rite of passage for the material, the artist, and the viewer. The artist’s studio overlooks a loading dock, an environment in flux where materials come and go. The exhibition interprets discarded material and objects as liminal matter; no longer serving their previous existence as commodities, they possess an ambiguous identity that hovers between form and intended function. First coined by Arnold van Gennep, the term liminality is used to describe the time in which people are on the threshold of entering a new phase in their life, having left the previous one behind. The limen, said to act as a membrane, holds the tension between one space or condition and another. It is in these transitional moments that transformation can occur.
Care Packaging
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2022) Leonard, Forrest Claude; Taylor, Brad E.; Art
Care Packaging presents a ceramic artist’s perspective on waste streams as a resource, rather than a source of pollution. Forrest Leonard focuses on Styrofoam, which despite being recyclable occupies 30% of landfills worldwide. In Hawai‘i, Styrofoam packaging waste increased alongside online shopping during the COVID-19 pandemic, a sign that the climate crisis continues in spite of lockdowns. Rather than dwell on these negative associations, Leonard reuses the Styrofoam packaging as readymade molds for casting ceramic forms. Utilizing recycled clay and found colorants, he recasts the products the Styrofoam once carried, and adapts them as functional and sculptural ceramics.
Deep Time
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2022) Davis , Makenzie; Kawabata, Wendy; Art
Deep Time uses paint and handmade paper pulp to envision an environment where geologic deep time is observed not only in natural phenomena, but also mythology, mo’olelo, and memory. The installation consists of a monumental 24 foot painting on paper with layers of suggested (and process oriented) material landscapes. Five sculptural paper columns refer to the ancient notion of axis mundi, with contemporary renditions such as lava trees and urban utility poles. Each component holds an interconnected material, cultural, and personal history that utilizes a geologic perspective to foster a sense of deep time within the human experience.
Realphantasie
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2022) Noordhoff, Helena J.; Cohan, Charles; Art
This paper examines shared perceptions regarding mental health and emotional conditions as well as the diagnoses we attribute to them; thus, inviting the development of empathy. In my exhibit, Realphantasie, Monoprints, zines, and audio are showcased as an examination leading viewers to perceiving, reacting to, and emoting about collected narratives represented in the artwork which reveal struggles with mental health. Predominantly inspired by the work of Hermann Rorsach, Andy Warhol, Lygia Clark,and Ray Johnson, my artwork serves to foster inclusion, emphasize engagement, and transform a viewing of the exhibit into a meaningful personal experience. The dominant mono print inkblots seek to vary perceptions between individuals. To make the works, I use frosted mylar as my substrate and acrylic inks. The elements of metallic oxidation in the mirrored inkblots conceptually represent the breaking down of strength, yet they produce beautiful pigments. In order for the viewer to find a connection or a moment beyond the surface, they must engage more deeply with the inkblots to recognize images and shapes within. The zines in Realphantasie, collections of drawings and writings, summon further engagement and consideration for the viewer. The audio composition plays to intentionally represent my interpretation of how anxiety could sound. Collectively, these works prompt the viewer to engage, perceive, and contemplate our awareness of and reactions to mental health.
Threads of Empathy, Knotting the Unseen
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2022) Naeem, Sadaf; Ferreira, Jose; Art
Threads of Empathy, Knotting the Unseen, make the connection between physical labor and women's unseen emotional work visible. This paper examines cotton cords made by women in Punjab, Pakistan, in an intensive method of knotting and braiding which emerges from everyday acts like making hair braids or tying a knot to get dressed. The research-based installation consists of Knotted Bodies, Braided Body, and Unfolded components. Taken together, they are a confrontation of childhood memories and a metaphor for healing. The specific working process in this thesis is knotting cotton ropes and braiding human hair. As I think about memories, childhood experiences, and the physicality of my body, knotted cords function as a bridge between current reality and memory. The working process engages several questions: First, how can I empathize with my body? Second, how does the skin maintain physicality and absorb memory? And finally, how does an invisible layer of memories over the skin constrict and hold the body together? While processing specific materials in the studio, I think about the mental patterns that control perceptions and interpretations.
Cave painting
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2010-12) Davis, Liam; Cohan, Charles; Art
A tour bus parks in downtown Manhattan. A group of tourists unloads and proceeds to explore the city. An hour later two tourists run into each other on a street in Greenwich Village. One says to the other, “Have you seen the Village?” The other responds, “There’s a Village?” One knew there was a village and knew he knew little about it. The other did not know there was a village. Neither knew they were standing in the middle of it. We constantly sort information. Our brains spend a great deal of time pinpointing what is useful and pertinent amid the ceaseless currents of information. In a culture that increasingly embraces media, we must learn to distinguish not just fact from fantasy, but also the mediated from the actual. Yet, simultaneously, we often accept information (or “facts”) from the media as being part of our collective reality. Over the last few years I’ve become extremely interested in our relationship with reality. Increasingly our experience seems to be processed, translated, and derived. Our interaction with mediated information has escalated to such an extent it’s as if we live almost entirely within a simulacrum. From the caves of Lascaux to Gutenberg’s printing press; from the birth of photography, to the rise of the internet-- Greenwich Village 3 the gaze of humanity has shifted. As a printmaker, I’ve experienced a heightened interest in the process of mediation. In the spring of 2008 I embarked on an enquiry into the history and legacy of visual mediation.
Dry Spell
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2021) Macy, Jenna; Taylor, Brad E.; Art
D‍ry Spell(noun): A period of arid weather. A calendrical break from intimacy. A lapse of love. I have found that most humans hold on either too tightly or too loosely to that which we feel intimate towards - a push or pull dynamic that reflects an unstable relationship with power and control. Sand is the ideal teacher in this regard, as it can only be held with a touch that is both firm and relaxed or else it slips through the crevices of one’s fingers. Engaging in a performance-based research of the properties of sand and the survival mechanisms of desert chameleons, I was able to begin a journey of learning this lesson in intimacy from natural phenomena. Dry Spell is an exhibition of video performances and sculptural objects that engage with the perceived language of natural phenomena in the desert. Deepest Darkest Seacret II - Master of Disguise (2020) is about “communicating” a secret in the shifting sands using a sculptural soundwave tool fabricated from a recording of me whispering a secret. Learning to Not Drown (2021) is about “healing” a bruise by changing the color of a ceramic sculpture with the heat of my body. Both performances are edited to popular nature documentary soundtracks, in ways that open up the questions about human intimacy during this isolated time and place through an imagined lens of reverse anthropomorphism. By stretching the imagination about what intimate actions are and how they manifest, these works challenge not only my personal understanding of intimacy but what I perceive as a larger cultural dry spell - the historical and ongoing devaluation of intimacy in Western culture.
Eia Ke Kumu
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2021) Lum, Nanea Jordan; Drexler, Debra; Hamilton-Faris, Jaimey; Art
This paper introduces literary resources for education about Hawaiian culture and resistance to settler colonialism and militarism in Hawaiʻi. Eia Ke Kumu, 2021 is a ceremonial creation of artworks that honor the materiality and spirituality of the ‘āina of Mānoa. As a series of paintings and documentation videos, Eia Ke Kumu talks about my creative process as it is related to Hawaiian conceptions of creation. I consider Mānoa, not solely a place for my education, but a Kumu, a teacher of the process of becoming centered spiritually, materially responsible, and navigating through ambiguity. The title roughly translates to: here is the reason; the lesson, the beginning, the teacher, and the main stalk of a tree. This work is my navigation of place, a methodology of making connections, and meaning as a Kānaka artist; a person identifying the politics in existentialism of Hawaiian culture in Hawaiʻi. The title also refers to Nānā I Ke Kumu = Look to the source, a three-volume literary compendium of traditional principles and values of Hawaiian epistemology collected since 1970. These scholars' works of a deeply political origin engage with the foundation of the Hawaiian language as the sustaining element of discourse. The materials of visual language I use articulate (not just passively represent) the cultural compositional conversation with ʻāina—a sense of knowledge coming from a relationship with the Indigenous lifeworlds.
Yeoubi
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2020) Kim, Mary Taehee; Drexler, Debra; Art
My concept of poetic abstraction combines Sijo (a distinctive Korean poem format), the Korean traditional color schemes of Oh Bang Saeg and Oh Gan Saeg, and the concept of Han (the Korean interpretation of a historically particular, innate bittersweet sorrow emotion). To better understand the definition of Han and also new interpretations of Han in modern Korean society, it is necessary to look into Korean history. The idea of Han was developed from a long history of invasions into Korea from surrounding countries. The current manifestation of Han in Korean people has changed to reflect individual struggles rather than nationwide problems. I tried to embody Han on canvas with the color white to represent yeo back ui mi, the beauty of blank and negative space. My paintings are based on the Korean folktale metaphor, Yeoubi, which is a phenomenon in nature usually called ‘sun showers’ in English. The subject matter of ‘rain’ is indicative of the influence the various rain phenomena of Hawaiʻi has had on my artwork.
Within/Without
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2020) Kazlauskas, Kat; Babcock, Mary; Art
Within/Without is an invitation to engage with the emotions we face living within a world of uncertainty, without concrete solutions. It is a physical manifestation of my own emotional entanglements in trying to imagine ways out of climate chaos. I am questioning how we can create space for consciously cultivated hope and understanding within a present where history is being written by each and every one of us. I received 600 pounds of ghost net from Ocean Voyages Institute—just a “tiny” portion of an 80,000-pound haul of fossil fuel derived plastic waste from the Pacific Gyre. I view this “gift of garbage” as a bold metaphor for the micro and macro challenges we face as inhabitants of Earth. The installation offers abstractions of clichéd iconography, through a Pepper’s Ghost illusion in which a sheet of glass is used as an optical beam splitter to superimpose one scene upon another. Neon, light, and mirrors create further illusions within the space. The neon flashes SOS as its electrical charge evokes capitalism’s rapacity to consume, while the use of glass alludes to our ecological fragility.
Portrait of a Moving Target
(University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2020) Anderson, Cody T.; Kawabata, Wendy; Art
Portrait of a moving target (idiom) : An attempt to represent a continuously changing situation. // The anchorwoman gasped and fumbled, unable to describe the scene unfolding before her; she was trying to paint a portrait of a moving target. : An inherently flawed assessment, limited by incompatible means and end. // The contractor had forgotten his tape measure and was now measuring the wall using only his wingspan, “It’s a portrait of a moving target” he said with a shrug. The idiom describes a series of artworks attempting to represent the present. The exhibition sets out to locate the present as not just a liminal moment, but also our historical, geographical, and cultural time today. Using contemporary subjects and themes, each work is constructed as a model that imagines or conceptualizes the present. The work pulls from historical examples of documentary art forms to create a set of open-ended documents—not a record, but a recording. An open-ended document is less definitive, operating as an observation without dividing the categories of complete or incomplete, fact or fiction, static or in-motion. Ironically poking fun at itself, the attempt to record a never-ending subject points to documents and archives as being redundant, cumbersome, and likely to change tomorrow. Together, the various works operate as a concocted positioning system, pinpointing the here and now with a dull carpenter’s pencil.

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