Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

Files

File List


Valerie Buynak Thesis.pdf (701.16 KB)

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

The Presence of Absence

Buynak, Valerie J
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1569357845069176

Abstract Details

2017, MFA, Kent State University, College of the Arts / School of Art.
NOISE OF EYELIDS: THE PRESENCE OF ABSENCE The noise of eyelids is not silent. The opening and closing is a strike upon the plane of perception, as if it were an ocular frieze of the present tense. It is the residue of what one experiences, whether implied or actualized, an emotionally charged layer of response and retention. I combine phenomenology, the concept of subjective interpretation of an event, with visual marks of how dreams and images of loss can be iterated and inferred. These are my visual expressions of personal loss and the emotional residue that offer oneiric and meditative openings in the sepulchral landscape. The past tense can be ritualized, but in my explorations, I hope the viewer can share with me the idea of contextualizing that which is absent, yet present and itinerant in frequenting all of one’s senses. I have utilized two processes in my thesis work, photograms and fumage. Photograms are a photographic technique in which one uses light to directly transfer an image onto light sensitive paper, eliminating the camera and negative. The three-dimensionality of the subject matter is captured onto the paper and is then developed. I used my hair as a subject, which I manipulated by gestural movements. I chose to use my hair, because of the implications and significance hair has in our culture: the lioness full with fringe, the loss with illness, age and genetics, a keepsake of babies and loved ones. The second process I used is fumage, a technique developed by the Surrealists in 1936. By holding a sheet of paper above an open candle flame, one can catch layers of carbon, which is sensitive and vulnerable on cold press paper. I can then blow away the carbon and continue to manipulate the surface with erasure and additional marks. These layers of soot are indicative of how I experience loss as a landscape in which I visit to interpret emotions. Valerie Buynak M.F.A. Thesis Exhibition Center for Visual Arts, Kent State University, March 2017
Gianna Commito (Committee Chair)
Darice Polo (Committee Co-Chair)
Martin Ball (Committee Co-Chair)
John-Michael Warner (Advisor)
20 p.
Art Criticism
Presence of Absence, spectral images, ghosts, loss, oneiric recall, phantoms, loss of self, euphoric recall, phenomenology

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Buynak, V. J. (2017). The Presence of Absence [Master's thesis, Kent State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1569357845069176

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Buynak, Valerie. The Presence of Absence. 2017. Kent State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1569357845069176.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Buynak, Valerie. "The Presence of Absence." Master's thesis, Kent State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1569357845069176

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

kent1569357845069176
126
© 2017, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License The Presence of Absence by Valerie J Buynak is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by Kent State University and OhioLINK.