This is my senior thesis project for my Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. It is a non-commercial work of art.

Statement of intent:

“[Beginning with Piranesi], man is definitively overrun by what he creates and what little by little boundlessly destroys him. The obsessional idea of construction, the ordering of stones or of machines, these human triumphs! carried to an extreme, open an infinite vista of nightmares and of multiplied punishments wrought by the automatic law of the vaults, the pillars, the stairways, a multiplication there is no reason not to stop (totality, form existing only on a human scale, man is outstripped by the very need for representation that has unleashed this crushing force).”

—Henry-Charles Puech on the first entropic artist, Giambattista Piranesi.

As I reflect upon my work and my education as a designer, I am struck by the realization that my best work incorporates elements of chance and random occurrence. In a field defined by the rational, I have found myself increasingly interested in the idea of the uncontrollable.

In this work, liquid is the material, and time is the instrument. I am interested in the uniformity and sameness of liquid. It allows me not to control it. On the surface, this work symbolizes pure creation, but underneath, I explore concepts of control, destruction, interaction, relationships, beauty, i­ntimacy, and spirituality.

This work is informed by the ideas of those of the Anti-Form movement of the 1960s and 70s–specifically the work of Robert Smithson, Allan Kaprow, and Iain Baxter. Anti-Formists put an emphasis on process rather than on achieving final and definite results, subverting the normal role of process in the creation of work. All three artists simply allowed the process to occur. Georges Bataille defines entropy as “the constant and irreversible degradation of energy in every system, a degradation that leads to a continual state of disorder and of non-differentiation within matter.” In his essay “Informe”, Bataille goes on to provide the following example:

“[T]he inevitable cooling down of the solar system–against the grain: the sun expands extravagantly, forcing us into overproduction and waste in order to maintain even a fragile balance.”

Like the Anti-Formist, I facilitate the process and then leave it alone. The liquid takes on its own energy. I am not interested in manipulating the process. Rather, I am interested in how the process can manipulate the viewer mentally, physically, emotionally, and/or spiritually. As my process moves through time, the liquid reaches a certain state of fragile balance, only to be repeatedly interrupted by waste. The “deadtime” is as much a part of the work as the movement itself. It creates anticipation within the viewer. Not knowing where the next drop or movement will take place, the viewer’s eyes continually await the next moment.