Graduation Year

2019

Document Type

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Art

Reader 1

Kasper Kovitz

Reader 2

Ken Gonzales-Day

Rights Information

© 2018 Hannah Kent

Abstract

This senior thesis will primarily investigate artistic creativity, its relationship to psychological well-being and the power of the creative process to help harmonize internal tensions caused by either mental disorders or former traumas. I will accomplish this, first by offering a brief explanation of the evolution of creative thought, followed by various scientific explorations and theories of the connection between varying mental states and creation. I will support these findings with an analysis of the lives and works created by the painters Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, and Frida Kahlo, all subjects of public speculation about the state of their mental health and its impact on their work. This analysis will consider the creative process as a form of psychotherapy. I will conclude by sharing a personal examination of my own history with mental health and trauma and my representation of these experiences and my ability to overcome these events in my paintings for this senior project.

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This thesis is restricted to the Claremont Colleges current faculty, students, and staff.

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