Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College
系所名稱
Art
指導教授
Denyce Celentano
摘要
The works in the Intimate Immensities series of landscape paintings function as aporia, or irresolvable contradictions. Using two aspects of Charles Sanders Peirces semiotic designations of the sign: the icon and index, these paintings function as both iconographic representations of mankinds spiritual connection with nature and indexical relics of the creative process as ritual. The foundational view out of which the work emerges is grounded in the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism. This thesis correlates Vajrayana Buddhism, ritual and the creative process, by explaining the parallels between ritual and the cognition that occurs during the creative process. To do this, the discussion uses the three-stages of ritual as theorized by Arnold Van Gennep: separation, margin and aggregation, Victor Turners terms: structure, anti-structure and liminal and the research into the creative process by educator and Ph.D, Nicole M. Gnedza. By fluctuating between the two ontological states of index and icon, the work resists stasis, however by representing a spiritual theme via both these means the work forms a cohesive whole.
