Hiraeth
A thesis submitted to the college of the arts of Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts
by
Shannon Black
May, 2019 Thesis written by
Shannon Black
B.F.A., Youngstown State University, 2017
M.F.A., Kent State University, 2019
Approved by
______Peter Christian Johnson, M.F.A., Advisor
______Marie Bukowski, M.F.A., Director, School of Art
______John R. Crawford-Spinelli, Ed.D., Dean, College of the Arts TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
LIST OF FIGURES…………………………………………………………………………………………………….…………….……iv
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………………………………………………………………………………………….……………….....vi
HIRAETH…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….……………...1
FIGURES……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….……….…..6
REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………....26
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figures Page
1. Hiraeth (Exhibition)…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….6
2. Cynosure.………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….……..….7
3. Cynosure View 2……………………………………………………………………………………………………….………..8
4. Cynosure View 3…………………………………………………………………………..………………………………….…9
5. Cynosure View 4………………………………………………………………………………………………………..……..10
6. Cynosure Detail……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..….11
7. Cynosure Alternate View……………………………………………………………………………………….………….12
8. Limerence………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….……..13
9. Limerence View 2………………………………………………………………….………………………………….………14
10. Limerence Detail……………………………………………………………………….…………………………………..…15
11. Limerence Detail 2………………………………………………………….……………………………………………..…16
12. Revere…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…………..…….17
13. Revere View 2………………………………………………………………………………………………..……………..…18
14. Somber…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…………..……19
15. Somber View 2…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…….20
16. Demesne………………………………………………………………..……………………………………………………..…21
17. Vacuity……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..22
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18. Vacuity View 2…………………………………………………………………..………………………...... 23
19. Solemn……………………………………………………………………………….….………………………………..……24
20. Solemn View 2………………………………………………………………………………………………………….….25
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The past two years have been some of the most challenging yet rewarding times of my life. I feel very fortunate to have been surrounded by so many supportive people throughout this experience. I would first like to acknowledge my unbelievably amazing parents, James and
Cynthia Black, for their unconditional love, support, guidance, and help throughout my entire academic journey. Without them, none of this would have been possible. I would also like to thank my loving sister Brittany Shaw, for setting an example of what hard work, persistence, and determination looks like, while going through college with two children. I would like to thank the rest of my extended family as well. I would like to thank my partner Daniel Newman, who, being an artist himself, provided me with the love, reassurance, support, and understanding that I so needed during this process. I would like to thank my emotional support dog Nigel, for making those extra hard days a little easier. Coming home from the studio to see him every day made my anxiety and depression much easier to deal with. I would like to thank my advisor Peter Christian Johnson, for his mentorship these last two years. I have gained so much knowledge from him that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. I would also like to thank the rest of my committee, Emily Duke, Andrew Kuebeck, and Davin Ebanks, for their critical feedback and advice. I greatly appreciate each of you. Lastly, I would like to thank all of my hilarious studio-mates for putting up with me and providing me with comical entertainment every single day. I will miss you all so much.
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1
Hiraeth
My work explores the manipulation of geometric forms using architectural structures as a reference. Architecture suggests solidity and permanence, qualities that are sought after by some humans, but overlooked by most. Like humans, buildings display the physical scars of life.
Abstracting forms that are specifically familiar to me creates an obscured experience for the viewer. This body of work is my perspective on the deterioration of the familiar, as well as the distortion of the reality we know. Utilizing the blueprints of my childhood home as a foundation for each form, and abstracting variations of this architectural structure demonstrates that change is constant, and exposes the transformation of what once was. This grouping of sculptural objects reveal the emotional impact of loss and expose my personal experience with memories and pain.
One of the many important factors of architecture is that it affects its occupants both physically and mentally. Architecture, specifically in residential homes, is transformative in the way that it can shape and form an individual’s identity. I am interested in the relationship between buildings and the human condition. Home, a place of comfort and control creates a sense of order, acting as a comfort zone and shielding us from the unpredictable chaos of the outside world. Many desire meticulous control over matters in which they have no power, but time changes everything regardless. The distortion of time and memory manifest within my minumental landscapes. Empty and monochromatic rooms create a sense of sterility and vacancy, coinciding with my recollection of time deteriorating memory. 2
I am intrigued by aesthetic formalism because of its simplicity, and ability to present work in its purest form, free of associations and mysterious in nature. Clay serves as a malleable and flexible material in which I can abstract, alter, and transform geometric shapes, in a way that other materials cannot provide. Slabs are formed into walls, and floors. Forms are cut into cross sections of a home, allowing viewer to become a voyeur, peering in on my orderly system, which is fabricated and false. Intentionally, there are no obvious windows or doors, in hopes to prevent the contents inside from escaping; physically and conceptually. By trapping in these contents, I feel a sense of control in which I otherwise do not have. Enclosures devoid of anything domestic feed into to the austerity of an empty and hollow space. Removal of color strips the foundations down to their bare bones, until they are a shell of what they once were.
Stony and pristine structures suggest a sturdiness that can withstand the passing of time. Wall pieces serve as an alternative perspective to these complex systems, displaying the accumulation of a foreign matter within the walls of a sterile space. Filled cavities conceal undesirable cognizance. Pedestal pieces are flipped, stretched, bent, or curved, in order to disorient and confuse the viewer, similarly to how my perception of this once familiar place is skewed. Industrial materials offer a raw quality to the monotony of minimal forms, highlighting the idea of aspired perfection. Avoiding flaws reiterates the impersonal nature of these forms that are detached from human emotion. These negative spaces of lifted forms offer a break for the eyes and add interest to a dense object. The act of covering or veiling the forms in simple surfaces while also drawing attention to display methods transform simple objects into trophies that memorialize and commemorate my home. The work is not about the memories but rather the void of them. The lack of a figure in a space that is intended for living reinforces the 3 absence I feel not being at home anymore, creating a sad and cold emptiness. The viewer and their interaction with the piece forces them to wonder how this dystopian model functions.
I chose to convey the emotion of sadness and emptiness because this is how I feel when reminiscing about my childhood. My memories, like the objects I create, are alluring, and idealized, yet cold and unforgiving. Many of the memories I have of my childhood are happy, but by reliving them as often as I do, I feel like a voyeur living in my own past. I consciously strive to focus on the present and future, but cannot seem to shift my focus from these memories. I am interested in this dichotomy of feeling sadness from reliving happiness, a phenomenon I find paradoxical because of how often people seem to find solace in happy memories. I represent this complex emotional state through contrast.
Contrast is a recurrent theme in this body of work, both physically and conceptually. I am interested in the dichotomy of contrasting surfaces while maintaining a harmonious balance. Interior vs. exterior, crunchy vs. sleek, opaque vs. transparent, black vs. white...
Speckles reference jesmonite, an aggregated material commonly used in the construction of commercial or industrial buildings.1 Using these surfaces generates a stark and cold feeling removing personal associations with the home, creating implications of loss, deficiency, and forfeiture. Concrete suggests stability and sureness while resin encapsulates those ideas.
Concretes opaqueness hides the pain, while transparent resin exposes it. Situated on stands like the precious jewel my home is, the forms hover above rocky waters of uncertainty.
1 Chandler, Barbara. "Jazz up Your Home with London Design Fair's 'material of the Year'." Homes and Property. September 01, 2017. Accessed April 24, 2019. https://www.homesandproperty.co.uk/luxury/interiors/design/london-design-fair-material-of- the-year-to-be-celebrated-in-ambitious-installation-a113241.html. 4
Hiraeth – A homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past.2 This term has been the conceptual force behind this body of work. Living far away, yet close enough to visit occasionally, I witnessed the gradual deterioration of my town and everything I once knew. The experience of driving past my elementary school, watching it get demolished bit by bit every visit. My home, still tangible, still standing, but different than I had remembered. Births, deaths, and countless other events have replaced my utopia with a distant murky memory. I am homesick for a home that will never exist again. My work is an internalized depiction of my past, present, and future. Remembering the past, coping with the present, and fearing the future. It is a representation of an altered truth, and a parallel to the adjustment of reality.
Ultimately, the core intent of my work, is to merge design, architecture, and sculpture into model sized objects, creating potentiality for further ideas. These sculptural objects serve as a personal recount of my experience with displacement, and the mental torment of memory.
This body of work particularly, was conceived through more personal and sentimental concepts, despite their absence of any obvious nostalgia or narrative. Inspired by minimalism, brutalism, and primitivism, I inject self-referencial aspects of memory, creating a more complex overtone to a rather simple aesthetic.3 My push for formal design and minimalism is intended to convey an idea using very minimal color and materials as I continue to pare down and take away until I am only using what I absolutely need.
2 Petro, Pamela. "Dreaming in Welsh." The Paris Review. September 18, 2012. Accessed April 24, 2019. https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2012/09/18/dreaming-in-welsh/. 3 "Brutalism and Antidesign." Nielsen Norman Group. Accessed April 24, 2019. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/brutalism-antidesign/. 5
My memories, like the objects I create, are alluring, and idealized, yet cold and unforgiving. These objects represent the change of my once familiar home, and depict that change through the alteration and modification of form. Ultimately, this body of work explores the abstraction of architectural construction, alluding to the change and manipulation of my own life.
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Figure 1 Hiraeth 2019
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Figure 2 Cynosure Ceramic, Concrete, Resin, Steel, Paint 2019
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Figure 3 Cynosure View 2
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Figure 4 Cynosure View 3
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Figure 5 Cynosure View 4
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Figure 6 Cynosure Detail
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Figure 7 Cynosure 13
Alternate View
Figure 8 Limerence Ceramic, Concrete, Resin, Steel, Paint
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Figure 9 Limerence View 2
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Figure 10 Limerence Detail
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Figure 11 Limerence Detail 2
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Figure 12 Revere Ceramic, Concrete, Paint 2019 18
Figure 13 Revere View 2 19
Figure 14 Somber Ceramic, Paint 2019
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Figure 15 Somber View 2
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Figure 16 Demesne Ceramic, Concrete, Paint, Garage Flakes
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Figure 17 Vacuity Ceramic, Paint, Silica Sand 2019
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Figure 18 Vacuity View 2
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Figure 19 Solemn Ceramic, Paint, Silica Sand 2019
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Figure 20 Solemn View 2 26
References
Chandler, Barbara. "Jazz up Your Home with London Design Fair's 'material of the Year'." Homes
and Property. September 01, 2017. Accessed April 24, 2019.
https://www.homesandproperty.co.uk/luxury/interiors/design/london-design-fair-
material-of-the-year-to-be-celebrated-in-ambitious-installation-a113241.html.
Petro, Pamela. "Dreaming in Welsh." The Paris Review. September 18, 2012. Accessed April 24,
2019. https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2012/09/18/dreaming-in-welsh/.
"Brutalism and Antidesign." Nielsen Norman Group. Accessed April 24, 2019. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/brutalism-antidesign/.