What Lies Behind: Speculations on the Real and the Willful

This integrated article thesis has three distinct chapters. Chapter One is an extended artist statement within which the following research questions are extrapolated: In what ways can an art practice question both the limitations of human-centered knowledge and issues of ‘the real’? What roles do both abstraction and representation play within this kind of artistic practice? Descriptions and analyses of my artwork are provided throughout this chapter. Chapter Two is comprised of visual documentation of the artwork I made during my MFA candidacy, accompanied by brief descriptions of each piece. Chapter Three is a case study on the work of San Franciscan artist Trisha Donnelly. I playfully propose that Donnelly’s art has a life of its own, independent of the will that made it. I explain how her artwork invites anthrodecentric interpretation by illustrating its autonomous characteristics through the lenses of autopoiesis and panpsychism