This thesis is an exploration of how lived experiences, a sense of dark humor, and creativity translate into my studio practice. Through images, material exploration and pointed interactions with the audience I encourage people to embrace nuanced views of difficult topics that exist in our world

Knapp, Steven

English

Rhode Island School of Design

Hearts and MindsSteven Andrew Thomas KnappDedicated to Staff  Sergeant John Michael WayneRISD BFA Printmaking Class of 2023Rest in Peace, Semper Fidelis Abstract This thesis describes how lived experiences, a sense of dark humor, and creativity translate into my studio practice. Through images, material exploration and pointed interactions with the audience I encourage people to embrace nuanced views of diffi cult topics that exist in our world.Civil (detail) 30”x15”x10”, 3D prints, found objects2022Yellow Footprints In 2005 I enlisted in the Marines. For some reason I had known I wanted to do this since middle school. It wasn’t done because of an imminent threat of invasion by a foreign force, post 9/11 patriotism, or being from a military family (I’m not). I didn’t have any money; I didn’t want to attend or care about college. I wanted to challenge myself and silence those who doubted me; I also wanted to travel.  When I fi rst arrived at my unit (2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines, Golf Company “Raiders”), some of the senior Marines laughed. What kind of dumbass enlists as an infantry Marine to “travel” when there are two wars going on? Me apparently. I did not know that decision would aff ect my ability to be able to aff ord to pursue multiple degrees of higher education, actually travel the world after being discharged, and massively infl uence my studio practice. Marines are known for their resolve and that is something that keeps me going in the studio, creating art that utilizes situational discomfort and dark humor with the tenacity necessary to engage with loaded topics.Material Adventure As artists we are constantly working with new materials, processes, and creative approaches as we progress down our paths. Even those who start working in the same studio, utilizing the same techniques, will arrive at diff erent destinations. The processing of an image or structure becomes an adventure that initially starts within the confi nes of a studio space and then moves on and out into the world. Through a personal sense of adventure in the way I approach processes and materials in my studio, I have migrated from a strictly two-dimensional practice into more three-dimensional work. This has naturally led to a lot of experimentation. Prints that hang from the ceiling, prints that are freestanding, and prints that can live on the fl oor without becoming too damaged from interacting with soil and other elements have become focal points.  Art that is not precious, images that can be mounted, cut up, and repurposed into other forms are exciting frontiers to explore. Occupying space as opposed to being restricted to the wall holds particular interest for me because of the way it can infl uence how audiences must navigate an area. In regard to manipulation of space, the terminology and tactics associated with the military and how they can infl uence the atmosphere of a room often crop up in my mind as I sketch images and structures. Security cordons, choke points, kill zones, overlapping fi elds of fi re, etc. are things that I consider in relation to the objects I create. These terms and tactics manifest into a physical scaff olding Drone Warfare30”x16”x16”, evolon, resin, acrylic, brass, copper, shuttlecock2023for an interaction directly with the audience, albeit a much safer one than what would be found in an active warzone.  Materials such as paper, steel, wood, brass, and copper can be found in wadding, tanks, braces for targets, shell casings, and projectiles. In my mind they are not associated with newspapers, structures, jewelry, and fancy kitchenware. The duality of materials and their ability to be used for both creating and destroying is something I fi nd interesting. A copper-wrapped countertop is a beautiful addition to a home, but most people would not use similar wording if that same copper is wrapped around the lead of a projectile. In military history perhaps no material has had such an impact and duality of purpose as steel. It is at the same time the backbone for the most ambitious structures ever created by man and the most destructive weapons. Steel has become one of the most used materials in my studio because I enjoy the strength it has, as well as its malleability when heated. You can make structures with steel that could be rolled down the stairs, fall over, or be kicked with minimal to no damage. While I am not necessarily interested in designing this type of interaction, knowing that I can create and manipulate a structure without treating it as a precious item allows me to focus more on what the materials can do. A clean white sheet of Rives BFK must be handled with care and clean hands to remain pristine. Steel can go through a process of heating, being bent, welded, All Fun and Games9”x9”x3”, 50 caliber shellcasing, cast crayon wax2021and thrashed with an angle grinder and still retain the ability to be polished because of its inherent qualities. This resilience meshes together with Evolon “paper,” which is a polyester/nylon microfi ber that I fi nd to be a very strong substrate to print on. It can be sewn, stapled, cast into resin, and generally physically manipulated far beyond what any typical paper would tolerate without becoming severely damaged.  All of these factors infl uence how I work because I can start to think of prints in a non-traditional sense while considering the duality of the materials I am using. Prints can suddenly live in and occupy spaces that we don’t generally associate them with, instead of steel plated copper passing through a printing press as a matrix it becomes a three dimensional support structure. This also infl uences how I design my prints because the borders for my images lose the rectilinear confi nes of a page. I have to think of how they will wrap around something or what they look like from behind.Sentries23”x16”x16”, evolon, wood, camo netting , mirrors, steel2023Beyond the Studio In the Marines I learned many skills that do not have direct applications in everyday life such as dressing a wound, marksmanship, or convoy IED responses. That being said, even in a more violence-oriented occupation such as that of an infantry Marine, there are lifelong skills that I have retained in my artistic practice such as discipline, confi dence in unfamiliar environments, and the ability to push myself in times of discomfort. My time spent in the military directly infl uenced my confi dence in exploring unknown parts of the world around me and my desire and ability to interface with it. Not in a carefree and touristy manner of staying in resorts and riding on cruise ships to curated experiences of a country, but with a mindset that took into account the challenges and fl exibility required to navigate and learn from other cultures and ways of living outside of tourist trap experiences. With authentic experiences in mind, the infl uence of dark humor can be seen throughout my work as a refl ection of my ability to be in demanding situations while maintaining composure and a sense of humor. Traveling and new experiences can be terrifying for some, and a level of dark humor and resolve goes a long way. If you want to see someone panicking, sit at the front of a bus in a country with a two lane “highway” and someone experiencing this situation for the fi rst time….buses overtaking cars and other buses on a two lane road with oncoming semi trucks will have most people in a severe state of unease. You’re already in the country, you’re already on the bus, so you might as well sit a few rows back dozing off  and not worry about the possibility of a head-on collision or the bus hanging halfway off  a cliff  in Peru. Traveling has allowed me to connect with people and see the history of the world as a story larger than one country or one person. This has helped me to retain elements of empathy and diversity in my artwork that I think would be otherwise lacking had I not had the opportunity to travel. I can recall traveling to the Killing Fields in Cambodia on a trip through Southeast Asia. There is a giant structure fi lled with human remains to commemorate the mass executions conducted by Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge. Most people I know had no idea that a genocide ever took place there, and I found that despite the topic being so heavy it was worth engaging with. It was also on that same trip that I met an American working in Vietnam with an ordinance removal non-profi t, and I came to realize the lasting eff ects things such as landmines can have long after wars have ended. As an artist making work dealing with confl ict I know it is important to consider the multitude of experiences and eff ects that result from confrontations.My Brother’s Keeper (fl oor detail)12’x10’x10’, evolon, foam, soil, shell casings, plastic bags, oil drum, arduino, squirrel cage fans, crepe paper, resin2023Growth The largest and most obvious change in my time at RISD has been my approach to printmaking substrates and their display. My entire graduate application consisted of two-dimensional black, white, and red relief prints on my own handmade kozo paper which I learned to create over a period of two years in Fukui, Japan. Since my return to the US in 2019 I have vigorously pursued access to and education on metal working and (non-metal) casting. These two processes have allowed me to create non rectilinear structures for my prints to live on, in, and interact with. This has dramatically changed my approach to my work and how it interfaces with an audience. Instead of framing everything around the viewer coming to the wall, I have begun to consider how I can infl uence the viewer in three-dimensional space. Installations revolve around the idea of manipulation and control of a space. Long sight lines can be used to draw viewers into a certain area, with another element being off  to the side and remaining unseen until the viewer reaches a certain point. In a gallery setting this would be a reveal, on a battlefi eld it would be a L-shaped ambush, where a force is drawn into one direction only to be assailed from another. In opposition to the current trend of having “nice” installations for the audience to stand in front of and take selfi es to upload into our collective online reality, I instead seek to bring confl icts outside the safe borders of a space. Art should be a refl ection of all facets of the human experience, and I fi nd the most enjoyable museum outings to be the ones with a large variety of approaches to the studio. I want to see silly art that makes you laugh, as well as art addressing pressing social issues, confl ict, and all of the other conditions humans and our world face. With this perspective in mind Lynd Ward’s Gods’ Man is a visual novel that I often think about. Ward creates a very morose visual narrative, but the textures, use of large fl ats, and high contrast compositions make the work pop; if they were to be enlarged to fi ll a wall at a gallery, they would most certainly draw you in from a distance while still emanating an oppressive atmosphere. I still often start from a two-dimensional sketch with my own mark making for textures, fl ats, and contrasting areas, but I have recently begun to think of scale and materials for elements that transition into three dimensions.  Generally, I have been infl uenced by contemporary movements towards more installation/mixed media based art as opposed to traditional two-dimensional works on paper. In regard to my position in the printmaking fi eld and art world as a whole, I am interested in elements of recent movements, but not the entire ecosystem. While I understand that photo-friendly installations lead to free (possibly viral) dissemination and wider audiences, I don’t want to make something that is always engaged with through the lens of a smartphone. Recently while at the Storm King Art Center my partner and I were having lunch while viewing Zhang Huan’s Three Legged Buddha. We by no means spent our entire day with the sculpture, but did enjoy sitting and walking around it as we ate our lunch. During this time a man walked up, turned around, snapped a selfi e with the artwork in the background, and promptly walked off . I do not think Huan’s intention was to make the work photographic for social media when it was originally made in 2007, but I think this interaction highlights an issue I have with modern art consumption and a point I would like to diff erentiate with my own work. I don’t want to make work that will be a great backdrop for someone’s social media profi le picture. I really enjoyed going to see James Turrell’s Into the Light exhibit at MASS MoCA because it is the opposite of a postable experience. While it is perfectly possible to physically snap a photo in the light rooms, it breaks the immersion and also would aff ect your eye’s adjustment to the room's lighting. I enjoyed that the entire installation pushed you to just be in the moment without needing to document it because it was a fi nite durational experience.Closing I have tried to articulate that my studio practice is not an endorsement or disownment of the images and objects I create, but an acknowledgment and recognition of the world that we live in and all of the complexity that comes with it. My work is oriented towards a part of the community that can be polarizing. The military is generally not concerned with making everyone feel safe, happy, and accepted. While progress towards a more ideal society is a noble goal that we should all contribute to, I fi nd that grafting that expectation onto everything created in the studio leads to a homogenized, predictable creative space that doesn’t portray a true refl ection of the realities we live in. It is important to have works that are not built on the foundation of these concerns because not everything is. It is perfectly reasonable to create something and not have someone else’s reaction to it be at the forefront of your creative process. In any studio, part of the magic of creating is letting ideas come to you and working through them, oftentimes without a set end state in mind. As an avid traveler, this is the part of the process that keeps me coming back, it is a creative journey with an unknown destination. I may not always be able to physically move about as much or as often as I would like, but in the studio I can create and explore without ever leaving the space. When it comes to diffi  cult topics, I keep in mind that tenacity can take you to many diff erent places if you’re willing to push yourself.Show Me Where the Art Hurt You22”x30”, silkscreen print on Arches 88 paper2022Hearts and MindsThis book was made by Steven Andrew Thomas Knappin Providence, Rhode Island.2023/

Hearts and Minds

https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2015&context=masterstheses

Hearts and Minds

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Rhode Island School of Design