Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Marvelous Monsters

Thomas Bourque, The University of Western Ontario

Abstract

This Master of Fine Arts (MFA) Thesis Dossier, together with the MFA Thesis Exhibition Marvelous Monsters (2021), presents: a Comprehensive Artist Statement; Practice Documentation; a Case Study on Canadian artist David Altmejd; a Bibliography; and my curriculum vitae. The Practice Documentation section of this dossier highlights key pieces of my creative explorations over my time in the Visual Arts Department at Western University as well as photographic documentation of Marvelous Monsters. Taken as a whole, this MFA Thesis Dossier explores and situates immersive digital installation studio practice with research into beauty, abjection, monstrosity, hybridity, Surrealism, and speculative worlding as guided by key thinkers and artists (including Edmund Burke, William Hogarth, Mary Shelley, André Breton, Max Ernst, Julia Kristeva, David Altmejd, Rona Pondick, and Kelly Richardson).