Hannah Lewis-Lopes BFA Photography Thesis Spring 2016

Copycat

This body of work, titled Copycat, questions the dynamics of looking and seeing that change with perspective. What you see is a series of performances that have been curated into an installation of eleven life-sized black and white photographs of different bodies performing an array of gestures that mimic those used in commercial images. By isolating these gestures from their context, I examine how they function to establish relationships between bodies, gender and power. I’ve combined masculine and feminine signifiers to create tension and contradictions within the images, as a means of implicating my viewers. The aim of the work is to encourage my audience to actively question what they are seeing, and why they are seeing it that way.

The photographs are printed life-size and installed from the ground up to activate an environment that encourages my viewers to engage with the images as if they were a mirror staring back at them. By keeping the variables of clothing, backdrop and cropping consistent in each image, I’ve created a typology, which acts to emphasize comparisons and relationships between, gender, gestures and the body. The images were printed on glossy paper to reference the polished quality of magazines. The choice of black and white, functions to distance the gestures from their context within the commercial language, and to emphasize the formal aspects of each pose. By standing in front of a body that is relative in scale to your own, I hope that comparisons will be made, provoking my viewers to question the different viewpoints of what they are seeing and to contemplate relationships between the photographs in the series. Ultimately, I aim to encourage consideration of how these images differ from mainstream representations of the body in fashion and advertising.

Hazel Miller BFA General Fine Arts Thesis Spring 2016

Molly Steadman BFA Printmaking Thesis Spring 2016

Kathryn Mcanalley BFA Animated Arts Thesis Spring 2016

Kai Jaye BFA General Fine Arts Thesis Spring 2016

Dillon Silva BFA Sculpture Thesis Spring 2016

Katherine Kawano BFA Painting + Drawing Thesis Spring 2016

Joseph Mcgehee BFA Painting + Drawing Thesis Spring 2016

Hannah Ames BFA Sculpture Thesis Spring 2016

Hannah Hertrich BFA General Fine Arts Thesis Spring 2016

Evan Humphreys BFA General Fine Arts Thesis Spring 2016

Arianna Gazca BFA Animated Arts Thesis Spring 2016

Xela Goldstein BFA Communication Design Thesis Spring 2016

Sammie Cetta BFA Printmaking Thesis Spring 2016

Jemmi Cole BFA Painting + Drawing Thesis Spring 2016

Mckenzie Green BFA Printmaking Thesis Spring 2016

Forrest Grenfell BFA Communication Design Thesis Spring 2016

Colin Laurel BFA Illustration Thesis Spring 2016

Kanani Miyamoto MFA Print Media Capstone 2016

Lynsey Nelson MFA Print Media Capstone 2016

Brandi Kruse MFA Print Media Capstone 2016

Eva Landis BFA Illustration Thesis Spring 2016

Karylynn Keppol BFA Illustration Thesis Spring 2016

Anna Colasanti BFA Illustration Thesis Spring 2016

Mareika Glenn BFA Illustration Thesis Spring 2016

Malcolm Bridwell BFA Illustration Thesis Spring 2016

Morgan Viger BFA Illustration Thesis Spring 2016

Marlowe Dobbe BFA Illustration Thesis Spring 2016

Robert Dunsmuir BFA Illustration Thesis Spring 2016

Kelsey Holland-Rayle BFA Illustration Thesis Spring 2016

Amy Meyer BFA Communication Design Thesis Spring 2016

Ryan Miller BFA Communication Design Thesis Spring 2016

Nancy Guzman BFA Animated Arts Thesis Spring 2016

Hannah Lewis-Lopes BFA Photography Thesis Spring 2016

Ryan Krueger BFA Photography Thesis Spring 2016

Maddie Maschger BFA Photography Thesis Spring 2016

Alexandra Hulsey Photography BFA Thesis Spring 2016

Matthew Gaston BFA Photography Thesis Spring 2016

Eric Brookens BFA Painting + Drawing Thesis Spring 2016