Graduation Term

2023

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Committee Chair

Ruth Burke

Committee Member

Brian Franklin

Abstract

My practice utilizes an intermedia and anti-disciplinary approach to conjure a reflexive vision of my experience as a gay and gender non-conforming person in rural Kentucky. Concepts that are important to my practice are storytelling, embodiment, and assemblage. Coming up gay in rural Kentucky I often felt like an assemblage. Not quite one thing entirely, but many parts swirling together in a fluidity that isn’t easily categorizable. Part farm boy, part faggot, part miss piggy. I am also interested in assemblage as a way of making. Found objects and images are tools I employ as a way of inviting the viewer into the work. Through their familiarity with an object, image, or subject, they can begin to contextualize the more personal or abstract components of the work. As a queer Kentuckian I am connected to a lineage of queerness that I wasn’t privy to until my adult life, however, could feel in my embodiment. This paper outlines how my experiences, and deep connection to queer Kentucky, inform my studio practice and research.

Access Type

Thesis-Open Access

DOI

https://doi.org/10.30707/ETD2023.20230711063201260682.999982

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