Graduation Year

2025

Document Type

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Humanities: Interdisciplinary Studies in Culture

Second Department

Art

Reader 1

Professor Kim-Trang Tran

Reader 2

Professor Marina Perez de Mendiola

Reader 3

Professor Alyson Ogasian

Rights Information

@2025 Mikayla S Stout

Abstract

This thesis examines the female and feminized body, and specifically the belly, as a site of both constraint and liberation through a studio art practice and theoretical engagement. Utilizing Gilles Deleuze’s theory of the fold, Julia Kristeva’s concept of abjection, and scholarship in disability and Black feminist studies, this body of work investigates the tensions between containment, corporeality, and agency, manifesting in three sculptures. These forms, constructed from pantyhose, stuffing, silicone, and cast jello, among other items, serve as visceral extensions of lived embodiment, drawing attention to the messy, entangled realities of bodily existence. Influenced by artists such as Sarah Lucas, Yayoi Kusama, and KINGCOBRA, I work in a haptic style influenced by the study of phenomenology and the writing of Eva Hayward. By foregrounding materials associated with intimacy, domesticity, and medical violence, the project positions the body not as a stable object but as a dynamic field of folds, ever shifting, resisting categorization, and imbued with social and political weight. This research is deeply informed by personal experiences of gendered embodiment and seeks to contribute to ongoing dialogues in feminist and queer theory and art practice. Ultimately, the project proposes sculpture as a means of thinking through and with the body.

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

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