First Advisor

Richard Muller

Term of Graduation

Fall 1986

Date of Publication

10-29-1986

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) in Painting

Department

Art

Language

English

Subjects

Gwen M. Erickson, Abstract art

DOI

10.15760/etd.5378

Physical Description

1 online resource (viii, 31, [1] pages)

Abstract

As a central issue in my thesis work, I wish to explore a growing interest in the nature of shapes and their relationship to each other and to their environment. The character or personality of a shape is defined for me by its gesture and its color. I like to join shapes with different characters in such a way that they incorporate a sense of movement. The emphasis has not been on competition or conflict, but on a kind of dynamic balance.

As I worked through a series of still life studies last winter, I felt tyrannized at first by the objects in front of me. While I was looking at them, I could not break away from a faithful rendering of their shapes, colors, and placement. It was only when I sat down to draw them without looking at them that I was able to redesign their contours and reinvent the space around them. I also found it helpful to cut still life shapes from paper and rearrange them with other scraps of paper. It was important for me to separate still life objects from their natural surroundings in order to concentrate on the formal considerations of making the shapes more interesting and activating the negative space around them.

During spring term I began doing pastel drawings without reference to any specific thing. I learned that I am most interested in shapes with strong gestures that can be linked with other shapes that contribute to an exciting relationship. The content of the drawings became the relationship between the shapes. I recognized an old theme in my art: the depiction of my relationships with others. My old work is narrative while the more recent is abstract, but both reflect my desire to live in harmony with my husband, family, friends, and environment without sacrificing my need for growth and change. The drawings, like my relationships, are not based on competition or conflict; I have been trying to achieve a dynamic balance between parts, one that allows the excitement of implied movement.

The play between the two-dimensional surface and the suggestion of three-dimensional space also interests me. I would like to create more of an in-and-out movement within a somewhat deeper pictorial space. I would welcome the return of recognizable references to the world around me, but I do not want to go back to the detailed representational drawing of the past.

I hope to strengthen my understanding of these and other formal problems through further study of other artists, especially the Cubists, and to examine their creative potentials in my own painting, drawing, and printmaking.

Rights

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Comments

A thesis report submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in Painting.

If you are the rightful copyright holder of this dissertation or thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to pdxscholar@pdx.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.

Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/19647

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