Enmesh: The art of trauma and recovery

Author

Joanna PottleFollow

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Date of Graduation

Summer 2019

ORCID

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4124-5376

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA)

Department

School of Art, Design and Art History

Advisor(s)

Susan D. Zurbrigg

Sarah T. Brooks

William Wightman

Abstract

Liminal Space is an artistic installation within the ongoing, interdisciplinary creative/research project "Enmesh: The Art of Trauma and Recovery.” Utilizing a combination of research methods, creative processes, and cultural inspirations, this project asks the following questions: how can the artistic process (this project serving as a preliminary case study) parallel various modes of recovery and healing? How can this objective be visually communicated through a mixed media approach of drawing, painting, and printmaking and how can this approach be an effective tool of communication? What can we conclude from both modes of work (solitarily or collectively)? How do they accomplish different things? How is vulnerability, nuance, and a journey—key elements in both processes—conveyed?

This project is a preliminary case study for these ongoing, long-term art and research topics I will continue to pursue stateside and overseas. First, I executed a three-month long plan in my senior year, starting entirely independent and merging into collaborative components to eventually be an entirely collective experience with a few fellow painters and printmakers. The second part of the project bookends the artistic project with preliminary and conclusive visual and cultural research through art residencies and research trips in New York, New York, and Krakow, Warsaw, and Gdansk, Poland. I was able to generate paintings and prints during my trips that synthesized my visual language with the research I was collecting, predominately within the historical and contemporary context of Poland. Looking to Polish history of poster design, painting, trauma, and Solidarity, I found many parallels with my artistic practice and process and implemented those into my project.

Recommended Citation

Pottle, Joanna, "Enmesh: The art of trauma and recovery" (2019). Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019. 639.
https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/honors201019/639

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