Date of Award
Spring 6-1-2021
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Department
Painting
First Advisor
Kevin Zucker
Second Advisor
Angela Dufresne
Third Advisor
Jackie Gendel
Abstract
I started threading wires between objects in an attempt at connecting the fragments of my life, winding forms into spiraling webs of meaning. Bluebirds, cartoon toys, Jewish kitsch, 90’s teen angst, immaterial feeling. Wires are squeezed with plaster and smothered in paint, tightly wound, mummified, squeezed to death, or post-death, suspended in an oxygenless void, as if time stopped and all at once we could feel the simultaneity of things — the star hurtling through space, a swimmer falling into water, raindrops sliding off a pair of glasses. I spin wires, squeeze them with wet plaster, mummify them, until they are frozen in aerial space, lodging them into air, as if to say to my sculptures, “ok you, FREEZE, stay right there….flying midair forever. I need you to be impossible. I need you to be magical.” I trace your path through the dark sky. Everything is suspended, a Mickey Mouse head, a bird, a toy troll, all swimming in the same dark goo. Maybe blue loops are a wish to capture immaterial things, to catch the present moment in my hands like a darting firefly. Maybe blue loops are diagrams of Covid era stagnation, of time suspended, of invisibile growth moving through sludge at 100 mph just below the surface, growth you can’t feel until you burst forth in one violent motion, spitting up dirt, hot wind ripping through your hair. “I’m alive” you say, poking your tiny head out of a hole of wet light in an endless black sky. Or maybe, blue loops are an impossible attempt at squeezing something so tight it can stay alive forever.
Recommended Citation
Senn, Rebecca, "Blue loops" (2021). Masters Theses. 804.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/804
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Comments
View exhibition online: Rebecca Senn