The Word as Bait

Abstract

This thesis examines the relationship between language, image, and object through four major works developed during an MFA in 3D4M. Working across drawing, poetry, sculpture, and language systems, I investigate how visual and linguistic forms interact and overlap to exceed their conventional functions as tools of representation. Underlying these projects is an interest in language and art as forms of human behavior situated within a larger ecology of perception and meaning-making. Drawing on the writings of Clarice Lispector, John Berger, and David Abram, I consider how acts of description and symbolic play might approach experiences that resist articulation. Rather than seeking a definitive representation of their subjects, the hybrid modes I work within explore how meaning emerges through the relation of parts and the engagement of varied forms of looking. The resulting work proposes a holistic artistic practice as a mode of inquiry—one which follows language to its edge and stays alert to what exceeds it.