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Thesis Defence: Intervals of Being
April 14 at 10:00 am - 2:00 pm
Huiyu Chen, supervised by Dr. Aleksandra Dulic, will defend their thesis titled “Intervals of Being: Echoes from the Inner Wild” in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in Visual Arts.
An abstract for Huiyu Chen’s thesis is included below.
Defences are open to all members of the campus community as well as the general public. Registration is not required for in-person defences.
Abstract
This thesis examines painting as a mode of philosophical inquiry into identity as a process of continual becoming. Following a period of lost hands during the COVID-19 pandemic, a profound rupture where I lost the connection between my inner pulses and outward expression, this research attempts to reconnect my internal realm and the external world. Conceptually informed by Western psychology and Chinese Daoist philosophy, the project understands chaos and order not as opposites, but as interdependent forces that generate transformation. These ideas frame painting as a symbolic system capable of constructing an internal world—an autonomous yet shifting realm within the mind. Through digital to oil paintings, I explore the inner spiritual terrain as a dynamic field where structure and dissolution continually shape one another. Rather than rendering recognizable external forms, the works propose a liminal space suspended between physical reality and intangible dream. The canvas becomes both an expression of interiority and a threshold to it.
Material process functions as both metaphor and method. Techniques such as layering, erasure, and wet-on-wet disruption embody the tension between definition and openness. By resisting fixed meaning and privileging emergence, the paintings suggest that identity is not stable or complete but continuously forming.
Ultimately, the thesis positions painting as a contemplative practice that enacts the very condition it investigates. By embracing instability and flux, the work argues that chaos is not the absence of order, but its generative counterpart—a necessary condition for transforming and becoming.
