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.

Comments

View exhibition online: Rebecca Senn

Included in

Painting Commons

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