Semester of Graduation

Summer 2026

Degree

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Department

Department of Art

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

This essay examines my painting practice as a site for re-enchantment in a world shaped by scientific rationality and capitalist discipline. Drawing from ecofeminist thought and my animist beliefs, the work resists painting as an attempt to simply mimic the visible world. Instead, it reclaims image-making as a symbolic, emotional, story-telling practice. My practice re-engages with a worldview rooted in magic, animism, and relationality.

I paint images of freedom in a free way – joining style and imagery. This body of work explores the intersections of utopia and dystopia, following a village of different figures immersed in their natural environments and trying to live in peace and harmony with the land. They are seen enjoying time outside with access to their own subsistence and communal lands. I am engaging with the history of communal land enclosures and imagining what it might look like if the commons was reopened.

The work is inspired by my friendships and a dedicated resistance to individualist culture. I come full circle by returning to the very act of communing and adopting hosting as a radical act, one informed by tradition and relational aesthetic praxis. Alongside the two-dimensional paintings, a beautiful tablescape was set up to host dinner parties and read from my oracle deck. These gatherings-as-art activate the gallery and transform the art into a shared experience that emphasizes connection, care, and collective imagination3⁄4the themes that are present in the two- dimensional works.

Date

5-13-2026

Committee Chair

Kelli Scott Kelley

LSU Acknowledgement

1

LSU Accessibility Acknowledgment

1

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Available for download on Saturday, May 12, 2029

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