Washington University in St. Louis Washington University Open Scholarship Graduate School of Art Theses Graduate School of Art Spring 5-14-2020 The Darkness Needs to Cry Damaris Dunham
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[email protected]. Dunham 1 The Darkness Needs to Cry By Damaris Dunham A thesis presented to the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts Washington University in St. Louis In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts Director of the Graduate School of Art Patricia Olynyk Thesis Advisor Monika Weiss Primary Advisors Jamie Adams | Cheryl Wassenaar | Monika Weiss Graduate Committee Michael Byron | Richard Krueger Dunham 2 Contents Introduction 3 Painting Transitions, Transformations, and the Terrifying 5 Layering, Touching, Sculpting. Lack and Excess | Void and Grotesque 21 Attraction and Repulsion in my Three-Dimensional Paintings 37 Hiding, Discovering, Darkening. The Affect of the Hidden 45 Naming the Complexity of the Hidden 55 Conclusion 63 Endnotes 64 Bibliography 66 Dunham 3 Introduction I am an artist interested in the subconscious, the uncanny, and the space of dreams. I make large scale, three-dimensional paintings that are both minimalist and baroque, non- representational and yet evoke the body as well as landscape.