Off-Campus Hollins Users:
To access this document, please click here to log in to our proxy server with your campus network user name/password (the same one you use to log into the campus network and your e-mail).
Year of Graduation
2019
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
MFA: Children’s Book Writing and Illustrating
Directing Professor
Ashley Wolff
Abstract
From the dawn of civilization, shadows have evoked a variety of emotional responses—instilling fear, piquing curiosity, inspiring awareness—by their mysterious and changeable nature. Shadows are an absence of light, but they cannot exist without a source of illumination. In their duality, not only can they reveal or conceal, but they also can be translated as either positive or negative space. Silhouettes, the artform subsequently derived from capturing these shadows, shares these dichotomies. Tracing the shadow’s dark history through slavery and into the present reveals important cultural implications for artists and illustrators who work with silhouettes. Creating the black-and-white illustrations for Jungle of the Night provided an opportunity to delve more deeply into the purpose and use of silhouettes and shadows while moving from the realism of the first dummy, Navy Quilt of Night, to the stylization of the second, Tryouts Tonight, to the art of minimalism in the final dummy, Jungle of the Night.
Recommended Citation
Edwards, Laurie J., "Shadows, Silhouettes, and the Art of Minimalism" (2019). Children's Book Writing and Illustrating (MFA) Theses, Hollins University. 6.
https://digitalcommons.hollins.edu/childrensmfa/6