Date Thesis Awarded
4-2024
Access Type
Honors Thesis -- Access Restricted On-Campus Only
Degree Name
Bachelors of Arts (BA)
Department
Art and Art History
Advisor
Eliot Dudik
Committee Members
Brian Kreydatus
Simon Joyce
Abstract
Objects of Affection is a collection of gelatin silver prints that emerged from a year-long exploration into large-format photography and self-representation. Photography provides me with both questions and answers as I arrange what exists around me, appropriated imagery, familiar objects, gestures, and organic forms into visceral representations of a feverish inner world. Vintage art magazines, crumpled paper scraps, and miscellaneous objects, consciously collected or serendipitously stumbled upon, find themselves recontextualized by my broader investigations of photography’s capacity for feminine empowerment. This body of work was photographed in Virginia and western Kentucky. My childhood bedroom, college apartment, and local forests: locations wherein I spend the most time and hold the most memories. Time in these spaces feels increasingly fleeting as I navigate adulthood and learn of memory’s delicate nature. Moreover, nostalgia continues to obscure my recollections of childhood like a rearview mirror that works in reverse. Objects may be smaller than they appear.
Recommended Citation
LeTendre, Madeleine A., "Objects of Affection" (2024). Undergraduate Honors Theses. William & Mary. Paper 2209.
https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/2209
