• Arts & Sciences
• The Charles Center
• Honors Program
• Completed Honors Projects
• Art and Art History

Art and Art History

In its Honors Program the Department of Art and Art History awards one level of Honors to student research projects. The projects listed below have been defended successfully, and a copy of the thesis deposited in Swem Library.

Key:

• Student, "Thesis" (Honors level)
  Committee Chair + Other Committee Members

2022-2023

• Sandra Kaitlyn Kelso, "Curating Couture: Collaborative Collections of Art & Design" (Honors) 
  Cristina Stancioiu + Elizabeth Clayton Moran, David Garrett, Charles Palermo
• Tara Vasanth, "Embodied Nature: Biomimetic Architecture as a Philosophy and Practice" (Honors) 
  Sibel Zandi-Sayek + Alan Braddock, John Swaddle
• Yaxi Xiao, "Goodbye... Ripples"  (Honors) 
  Eliot Dudik + Elizabeth Mead, Keith Johnson

2021-2022

• Victoria Erisman, "The Apocalyptic Mode in Contemporary Environmental Art" (Honors)
  Alan Braddock + Charles Palermo, Chitralekha Zutshi
• Yuchen Zhou, "Art Collectors and Collections in Contemporary China" (Honors)
  Xin Wu + Charles J Palermo, Sibel Zandi-Sayek, Kaitlyn Harrigan
• Yuhua Luo, "Zao Wou-Ki: The Infinite Landscape" (Honors)
  Xin Conan-Wu + Charles J Palermo, Sibel Zandi-Sayek, Michael Gibbs Hill

2020-2021

• Charles Parsons, "The Line of Dichotomy: Standpoints and Meaning in Anne Truitt's Art" (Honors)
  Charles Palermo + Elizabeth Mead, Timothy Costelloe, Xin Conan-Wu
• Sarah Robers, "Abraham Hondius's Dog Market: Early Modern Animal Imagery in Transition" (Honors)
  Catherine Levesque + Alan Braddock, Elizabeth Radcliff
  
• Jingxin Wu, "Echo Fragments" (Honors)
  Eliot Dudik + Elizabeth Mead, Charles Palermo, Richard Lowry

2019-2020

• Virginia (Grace) Bland, "The Carver's Choice: Tilman Riemenschneider's Monochromatic Altarpiece of the Holy Blood" (Honors)
  Catherine Levesque + Cristina Stancioiu, Philip Daileader
• Evan Broennimann, "Skin and Bones: A Sculptural Exploration of Form and Structure" (Honors)
  Elizabeth Mead + Mike Jabbur (Co-Advisors), Dan Cristol
• Elizabeth Dowker, "Rethinking the Genesis of Mudéjar Architecture in Medieval Toledo" (Honors)
  Sibel Zandi-Sayek + Cristina Stancioiu, Philip Daileader, Anne Williams
• Elanor Pschirrer-West, "Constructing History: John Everett Millais and The North-West Passage" (Honors)
  Catherine Levesque + Cristina Stancioiu, Simon Joyce
• Samantha Ros, "The Mexican Ex-Voto Tradition as a Potential Subversion of Authority" (Honors)
  Anne Williams + Cristina Stancioiu, Betsy Konefal

2018-19

• Rachel Ciampoli, “'Deceived by Misrepresentations': An Examination of Nicolino Calyo’s 'Servants at a Pump'" (Honors)
  SusanWebster + Alan Braddock, Melvin Ely
• Emma Efkeman, "(Re-) Staging Translation: Meaningful Interaction with Hindu Devotional Objects in the Western museum" (Honors)
  Susan Webster + Alan Braddock, Mark McLaughlin, Patton Burchett
• Zhengyang Huang, "Image at Surface"
  Elizabeth Mead + Eliot Dudik, Michael Gaynes, Tanya Stadelmann

2017-18

• Erin Lottes, "Lost and Found in Figurative Painting" (Honors) 
  Nicole Santiago + Brian Kreydatus, David Campbell, Gregory Conradi-Smith

2016-17

• Jacqueline Chapman, "Paintings with Doors: Three Case Studies from the Fifteenth Century Netherlands" (Honors) 
  Catherine Levesque + Cristina Stancioiu, Monica Potkay
  
• Tianchu Gao, "Nameless Art in the Mao Era" (Honors) 
  Xin Conan-Wu + Sibel Zandi-Sayek, Charles Palermo, Michael Hill
  
• Kexin Ma, "A Cup of Imperial Taste: The Formation of Ceramic Aesthetics under Emperor Huizong (r. 1100-1126)" (Honors) 
  Xin Conan-Wu + Catherine Levesque, Kevin Vose, Cristina Stancioiu
  

2015-16

• Ethan Davis, "That Which Caresses Me" (High Honors) 
  Elizabeth Mead + John Lee, Allan Braddock and Tucker McKinney
• Katie Fee, "Interactive Relationships: An Exploration of Ceramic Surface and Form" (Highest Honors) 
  Michael Jabbur + Elizabeth Mead, Joe Bova, Carey Bagdassarian and Jennifer Stevens

2014-15

• No Honors students this year

2013-14

• Erin Gregory, "Storytelling in Bronze: The Doors of the Baptistery of San Giovanni as Emblems of Florence's Roman History and Artistic Progression"  (Honors) 
  Catherine Levesque + Monica Potkay and Cristina Stancioiu

2012-13

• Nina Cavazos, "Divine on Display: The Siva Nataraja Bronze in an American Museum" (High Honors) 
  Ravi Gupta + Grey Gundaker and Charles Palermo
• Jarrett Ley, "Human Praxis: LGBTQ Homeless Youth Center" (Highest Honors) 
  Edwin Pease + Joanne Braxton, Elizabeth Mead and Sibel Zandi-Sayek
• Barbara Pearsall, "Materially Mandated" (Highest Honors) 
  Elizabeth Mead + Carey Bagdassarian, Ed Pease, Sibel Zandi-Sayek and Kara Thompson
• Michelle Repper, "Amrita Sher-Gil: Conversations in Modernism" (High Honors)
  Charles Palermo + Alan Braddock, Nancy Gray and Xin Conan-Wu

2010-11

• Erin Sexton, "The Art Museum as a Socio-political Actor: El Museo del Barrio and the Museo de Arte y Memoria as Activist Cultural Productions in their Respective Communities" (Honors)
  Alan Wallach + Silvia Tandeciarz and Susan Webster

2009-10

• Kiernan Lofland, "Prints and Sculpture, a Tactile World" (High Honors)
  Elizabeth Mead + Brian Kreydatus, Edwin Pease, Jason Lowery and Daniel Cristol
• Rusty Meadows, "Appropriating from the World of Business: Andy Warhol's Key to Success" (Honors)
  Alan Wallach + Danielle Moretti-Langholtz and Charles Palermo
• Sarah Williams, "Interiors: A Study of Human Core Samples" (Highest Honors)
  Nicole McCormick Santiago + Elizabeth Mead, Timothy Costelloe and Naomi Falk

2008-09

• Andrea Alvarez, "Jasper Johns: A Crisis in Criticism" (High Honors)
  Charles Palmero + Victoria Scott, Alan Wallach and Melanie Dawson
  
• Joan Bowlen, "Body Language: The Presence and Absence of Cindy Sherman, Sherrie Levine and Barbara Kruger" (Honors)
  Alan Wallach + Victoria Scott, Sibel Zandi-Sayek and Christy Burns
  
• Greta Glaser, "An Introduction to Painting Conservation" (High Honors)
  Catherine Levesque + Alan Wallach, Shelley Svoboda and J.C. Poutsma
• Amy Sedivi, "Unveiling the Unconscious: The Influence of Jungian Psychology on Jackson Pollack and Mark Rothko" (Honors)
  Alan Wallach + Victoria Scott and Michael Nichols
• John Starcher, "Portraits of Professional Men in the Gilded Age: An Investigation of the Life and Art of Thomas Eakins" (High Honors)
  Alan Wallach + Susan Webster and Bob Scholnick
• Peter Zimmerman, "Body Language: The Presence and Absence of Cindy Sherman, Sherrie Levine and Barbara Kruger" (Honors)
  Alan Wallach + Victoria Scott, Sibel Zandi-Sayek and Christy Burns
  

2007-08

• Sarah Gowen, "The Convergence of Science and Art: Conserving a Print of Hannah Snell" (High Honors)
  Barbara Watkinson + Charles Palermo, Pam Young and Elizabeth Harbron
• John Hawley, "'Spreekt, Schilderij...Swijgt, Schilderij': Some Thoughts on Thomas de Keyser's 1627 Portrait of Constantijn Huygens and His Clerk" (Highest Honors)
  Catherine Levesque + Charles Palermo, Barbara Watkinson and Dale Hoak
• Mary Ramsey, "The Vanitas of Jacques de Gheyn II: Technë as an Expression of an Artist" (Honors)
  Catherine Levesque + Charles Palermo and LuAnn Homza
• Kathryn Swanson, "John Steuart Curry: A Pictorial Autobiography" (Honors)
  Alan Wallach + Charles Palermo and Kimberly Phillips

2006-07

• Naomi Ocko, "Everett Stockton: Proposal for Affordable Housing Structure in Manchester, Richmond" (High Honors)
  Edwin Pease + Margaret Grubiak, Elizabeth Mead and David Phillips
• Amanda Stuckey, "Joseph Cornell and Visual Possession" (Honors)
  Alan Wallach + Eun Jung and Nancy Gray
• Bonnie Wilson, "Bodies of Work: Marc Quinn, Tim Hawkinson, and the Quest for Immortality" (Highest Honors)
  Charles Palermo + Sally Price, Eun Jung and Elizabeth Mead

2004-05

• Kate Zimmermann
  Alan Wallach + Sibel Zandi Sayek and Christy Burns
• Caitlin Freeman
  Catherine Levesque + Miles Chappell and Dorothy Chansky