Date of Award
Spring 5-30-2015
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Department
Photography
First Advisor
Eva Sutton
Second Advisor
Ann Fessler
Third Advisor
Nathan Lee
Abstract
This thesis presents the culmination of two years of excursions into and longing for the void: the sense of absolute presence and connectivity that I have always found in the desert of the Colorado Plateau. Away from the desert, I use my artistic practice as a means of approaching this kinship with the wild, the void.
My work may be understood as a series of experiments, striving to locate and access the void through different language, logic and media. My process speaks to a deep respect for the external wild of landscape (the desert), and a growing recognition of the coextensive wild within us all. Through my personal biocentric ethos I forge a communion with the universal wild of the void that operates on all scales at all times. This reflective connection between the internal wild and the external wild of landscape roots my practice in a radial contemplative action: a continual, affirmation and dissolution of my sense of self.
My echoic renewal of self is cultivated in tandem with an exploration of the work of Rene Daumal, Richard Long, Jack Turner, John Divola, Francis Alys, Yves Klein, Katie Paterson and other artists, philosophers and naturalists whose work similarly illuminates the void. As a regionalist, artist, and aspiring absurdist, my work aims to reflect a confluence of place and action that generates an empathic embrace of the wild of landscape through a shared recognition of the wild within us all.
Recommended Citation
Ludwig, Drew, "The Void, The Mystery, The Vast Array, The Infinity of Unities, The Otherworld, The Absolute, The Hidden Order, The Randomness, The Infraworld, The Nothing, The Zone of Immaterial Sensibility, The Silence, The Hollow of Space, The Ineffable, The Emptiness, The Wild" (2015). Masters Theses. 1.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/1
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