Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Date of Award

12-2003

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Department

Art

First Advisor

Philip Field

Second Advisor

Richard Hyslin

Third Advisor

Richard Phillips

Abstract

As an architect and artist I believe that there is a strong relationship between art and architecture. The perceived relationship between both has at times been thought more or less significant; however, history has shown us that a society or an individual can enhance the relationship between the two disciplines. I am working on establishing the strength of that relationship. My work of art is focused on the creation of spaces. It is about experiencing a variety of places through the visual and the emotional senses. The architectural settings that I depict and construct are far from the realm of realism. The intention is rather to place the viewer inside a sequence of spaces in order to make his experience an imaginative, personal, and contemplative one.

My work is about the creation of a visual space in the mind, a “mind-escape:” an opportunity to imagine yourself away from this physical reality into one “created” by you. As with architecture, harmony achieved through the evocation of sensations of space is essential in my art. Without an attachment to architectural and physical function, form and space become flexible and freer, discarding the responsibility of creating “good art” in favor of the creation of an artistic journey.

The concepts of “mental” and “real” space are key in this investigation. Places I have seen, spaces I have lived, are part of the real spaces in my life. They are my source of inspiration and subject matter for most of the work I have produced for my MFA show. The images from the memories of those real spaces are kept and reinvented in my mind. The exercise of reconstructing those memories results in the creation of mental spaces. These mental and real spaces are expressed through my two-dimensional renderings and three-dimensional constructions.

Comments

Copyright 2003 Claudia S. Behar. All Rights Reserved.

https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/reconstructing-memories-investigation/docview/250700351/se-2?accountid=7119

Granting Institution

University of Texas-Pan American

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