Painting the Bootleg
Date
2020-05
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Abstract
The focus of my written thesis is to illuminate concepts in my artwork around the complexity of American identity. My interdisciplinary body of work comes out of a need to create objects that reflect a material and symbolic visual language of nuance. This writing discusses a number of works blurring distinctions between painting and ceramics and referencing ideas of cultural mixing, the duality of symbols, appropriation, and vernacular materiality. My concepts are supported by research developed mostly by artists and thinkers of color deferring to diverse epistemologies. I look to these scholars as models as they understand and outline issues such as the overwhelming underrepresentation in art institutions for artists of color including Latinos and Colombian American artists like myself. It is important to note I identify 1 as Latino and Latinx 2 as opposed to Latin-American and will use this identifier throughout this thesis. My thesis will outline how my artworks resist accepted ideas and markers of ‘Americanness’ and expand definitions of this term through a process I refer to as “bootlegging.”
Description
Thesis completed in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Fine Arts degree in the School of Art and Design at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, Alfred, NY.
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Thesis
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MFA thesis, Alfred-Dusseldorf Painting, Latinx, Vernacular Materiality, Cultural Pluralism