Abstract

This thesis investigates a shift from the structured, approval-driven process of illustration to a more exploratory and intuitive painting studio practice. While my training has emphasized careful planning and technical precision, it has also limited spontaneity and material engagement. In response, I adopt a process-driven approach that privileges improvisation and material agency, repositioning painting as a site in which control is negotiated rather than maintained. This change marks not only a methodological departure but an internal reorientation—from adherence to external standards toward a more self-directed and responsive mode of making. The expansion of my visual universe—through expressive mark-making, increased ambiguity, and a deliberate tolerance for strangeness—strays from narrative clarity. The paintings resist singular interpretation and foreground the role of paint as an active collaborator in image formation. This approach produces both discovery and tension: while intuitive processes generate unexpected forms, the absence of predetermined structure can result in uneven resolution, prompting moments of intervention that both reassert and destabilize control. Parallel to this recalibration in technique, I begin to question why I am making these images and how they relate to my tendency to both conceal and reveal different aspects of myself. What do I keep controlled in response to social expectations, and what do I allow to emerge as that control loosens? These questions reflect a broader negotiation with societal norms, particularly their emphasis on composure, discipline, and emotional opacity. The release of control within the work reflects an increasing willingness to engage vulnerability and resist the pressures of conformity. In this sense, the paintings do not simply represent this tension but enact it—a continual movement between regulation and release, concealment and exposure, through which alternative modes of self-expression become possible.

Publication Date

5-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Student Type

Graduate

Degree Name

Fine Arts Studio (MFA)

Department, Program, or Center

Art, School of

College

College of Art and Design

Advisor

Emily Glass

Advisor/Committee Member

Clifford Wun

Advisor/Committee Member

John Aasp

Campus

RIT – Main Campus

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