Master of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition
Fragments in Flux: Deconstruction and Memory
I use small details such as text, texture, and fragments to find structure in overwhelming environments. These elements ground me and become the foundation of my work, which documents and reinterprets everyday moments through photography and collage.
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By blending analog and digital media, I focus on typographic deconstruction to explore memory as a fluid and evolving process. Type becomes more than language; it’s a vessel for emotions, perceptions, and memories.
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My layered compositions reflect how memory distorts over time. I invite viewers to engage with my work not for fixed messages, but for shifting, personal resonance.
Dissecting Type’s Personality
Dissecting Type's Personality, basswood, MDF board, piano wire, paint, 2025​​
Dissecting Type’s Personality is a three-dimensional exploration of the deconstructed type specimen sheets. The work explores the modular structure
of letterforms through fragmentation and building volume through layering.
The work combines digital processes with mixed media. The designs were created in Adobe Illustrator, and their layers were pulled apart. The digital layers were laser cut, painted with acrylics, and assembled using piano wire.
I discovered that digital tools are ideal for creating abstract forms and generating variations, while the physical construction of the letters brought volume to the forms through the layering of materials.
A letterform’s personality is expressed through visual elements like line, shape, and color. The layers create a sense of movement in space, while shadows add depth, color evokes emotion, and texture enhances the tactile experience.
Each letter has its unique character, shaped by its use of color and the balance between rounded and sharp features.
Ambivalence
Ambivalence, digital print, 36 x 43.25 in., 2023
Ambivalence represents the time I divide between two locations, Washington and Florida, where I have strong family connections. While I value having family in two beautiful places, I experience conflicting feelings due to the inability to have all my loved ones in one location.
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Growing up, frequent moves fostered a desire to remain close to family, something I lacked during my childhood. This sense of ambivalence influences my considerations for where I will reside after graduate school.
The piece combines experiences from both locations, incorporating signage and other fragments that evoke memories shared with my loved ones in each place.
Fleeting Fragments
digital media, 2025
Fleeting Fragments explores the deconstruction of typographic fragments in motion.
Geometric shapes emerge and dissolve, subtly altering the letterforms. Timed shifts in grayscale value isolate individual elements for the viewer. One image slowly dissolves into the next. This fading in and out generates a visual rhythm that mirrors the transient nature of meaning and the instability of form.
Here, typography moves beyond conveying a message—it becomes a visual experience. The fleeting forms evoke a sense of temporality, reflecting the ebb and flow between past and present in the current moment. Initially manipulated digitally, the letterforms are arranged into layered vector compositions using Adobe Illustrator and presented projected on a loop with slow dissolving transitions.
Deconstructed Type Specimen Sheets
digital, 2025
Deconstructed Type Specimen Sheets break down the form of the letter. I have a deep appreciation for the inherent beauty of letterforms and am fascinated by the compositional possibilities that emerge when a preexisting form is broken apart and rearranged.
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This work offers an exploration of how we understand and experience familiar symbols. By fragmenting the typefaces, I aim to challenge both myself and others to engage with language in a more dynamic and personal way.
This work was pivotal because it gave me the freedom to embrace digital art and create visuals using layering techniques, much like how I layer experiences in my mind.
My exploration of the abstraction of letterforms applies to both individual letters and words. Ultimately, I want viewers to engage with how language can be visually abstracted, showing that letters can offer a visual experience beyond just communication, sometimes even in a non-objective way.