3664
McAllister, Morgan "Eleutheromania." MFA
, UCSB, 2016
Abstract: This thesis comingles my nomadic lived experiences with my studio practice. Rooted in my Ashkenazi Jewish ancestral lineage, my work has developed an affinity for movement and ephemerality. The diasporic nature of my history has caused me to examine the physical and emotional relationships to space and place through painting, sculpture, installation, and writing. Through these expressive and performative acts, I examine somatic responses to personal space within the terrestrial and metaphysical landscapes that I inhabit, examine and create.
Furthermore, my work examines domestic settings, and the tensions that arise between the natural and designed worlds that are inhabited by nomadic residents. I will discuss impulses of yearning and practicality to form attachments to both utilitarian and nonfunctional objects.
My transient lifestyle has become a platform upon which to contemplate and critique existing social value systems, and my observations have nourished my artistic practice. I will discuss the conceptual deconstruction of structural and aesthetic materials that exist within domestic spaces, and the resultant cathartic act in which I dismantle furniture and construct large-scale paintings that are embedded with personal narrative in my artistic practice. Although my lived experiences have informed my writing and studio practices, I am also interested in the ways in which uprooted people, in general, attempt to recreate the idea of home once dislocated.
Department: ART
, UCSB
Advisor(s): Kip Fulbeck, Helen Taschian
