Date of Award

5-2024

Degree Type

Creative Project

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Department

Art and Design

Committee Chair(s)

Kathy Puzey

Committee

Kathy Puzey

Committee

Holland Larsen

Committee

Marissa Vigneault

Committee

Dennise Gackstetter

Abstract

On April 15th, 2022, I was diagnosed with Triple Negative Breast Cancer, the most aggressive form. Everything changed that day. My body became a specimen, inspected weekly. I decided to document the process of my treatment as a way to understand the implications and ramifications of living with the disease.

I transform my artwork into multiple iterations in response to my body’s changing landscape. The transparent layers of my abstracted poetry, transitional body photos, and MRI scans suggest the permeability of the cortex and the fluidity between the interior and exterior. Looking through the layers allows for a connection with the spaces beyond the surface, from the cellular to the deep recesses of the psychological. The superficial transforms into the profound.

In the Body Series, I processed many of the emotions and implications of my diagnosis. Would I die? Would this be passed onto my children? Would this come back more violently in the future? What if my scars and muscles continue to pull while I print? —I will never be held the same. I am numb.

I translate my trauma by mining images of my body used in the diagnosis, progress, and remission of this invasive disease. Color represents being stripped away and simultaneously healed. I reproduce various insects, imagery, and symbols to express anger, burden, danger, resurrection, pain, and a metamorphosis into something more.

This journey has been an individual experience, but it is not isolated. My work acts as a bridge, a way to come into a relationship with all that has happened.

Extant means to still exist: not destroyed or lost. A documentation.

I am still me.

Comments

Virtual tour of exhibition can be viewed here-

https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=TrLyf2822Dz

Download

Included in

Printmaking Commons

Share

COinS

Copyright for this work is retained by the student. If you have any questions regarding the inclusion of this work in the Digital Commons, please email us at .