Never Not

Author

Margaret Piellusch, Western Michigan UniversityFollow

Date of Defense

4-14-2014

Date of Graduation

4-2014

Department

Art

First Advisor

Richard de Peaux

Second Advisor

Adriane Little

Third Advisor

Mindi Bagnall

Abstract

I designed this series of paintings as surfaces onto which video feedback would be projected. The compositional elements of the paintings are the foundation for the video; the paintings give flesh to the intangible and temporal medium of video. The video feedback can be read as analogous to the self-referential loop of awareness turning in on itself: the video is an imagining of consciousness recorded. I chose to finish the paintings with a wipe of white. This gives reference to the work of Robert Ryman, who called his white paintings “the last paintings that anyone can ever make.” My white glaze, applied after the paintings’ footage has been recorded, obscures without obliterating the repeated pattern. The remaining faint lines, barely perceptible, are reticent, ghosts of their previous state. The animation is captured in video, living on past the “death” of the paintings, while their physical “corpses” are likened to mummified forms preserved in the sterility of the gallery.

Recommended Citation

Piellusch, Margaret, "Never Not" (2014). Honors Theses. 2450.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/honors_theses/2450

Access Setting

Honors Thesis-Open Access