Visual Art

Our MFA in Visual Art program provides a dynamic, experimental environment that supports the production of original creative work while challenging the conventional and habitual. Students explore a wide spectrum of media, production methods, and distribution strategies and learn to balance making with the generation of ideas.

The Graduate School of Art offers a two-year, critically engaged studio practice program with myriad opportunities for collaboration, cross-disciplinary work, and research. The program promotes a rigorous exchange of ideas within a tight-knit community of approximately 50 artists.

Our program is an open landscape for the emerging artist — one that reflects the dynamic cultural shifts, global perspectives, and evolving technologies that shape today's complex art world. While investigating their roles and responsibilities as artists, students challenge traditional hierarchies and embrace new forms of aesthetic thinking that include socially engaged and situated practices, site-responsive work, post-studio production, de-skilling, and DIY/maker movements.

Graduate seminars provide contemporary and historical contexts for art making, while a thesis seminar supports students in their writing and the development of their ideas. Through a combination of self-directed study, studio critiques, visiting artist reviews, and research, students build a sophisticated awareness of the cultural conversations of our time.

The Graduate School of Art subscribes to the standards for the MFA degree as set forth by the College Art Association of America (CAA) and the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD).

The residence requirement for the MFA degree is at least two academic years of full-time study (minimum 12 credits each semester). Students have five calendar years from the date of first registration to complete the degree. Individual programs are arranged with the Director of the Graduate School of Art. Graduate students work with faculty advisers according to their areas of interest within the Sam Fox School and the university at large.

Students must complete 44 units of Graduate Studio (10 credits each semester in the first year; 12 credits each semester in the second year) and two seminars in contemporary practice (3 credits each) in the first year. In the last semester, students take a 3-credit thesis seminar. The culminating event of the graduate program requires students to present, defend and document a thesis exhibition.

Electives may be taken from art, art history, and academic courses:

• Art electives introduce students to the intellectual and conceptual issues and production methods of a broad array of practices which complement and expand the student's area of study. First-year students must take all art electives at the 500 level; second-year students must take all art electives at the 600 level.
• *A combined total of 18 units of undergraduate and graduate art history course work is required for the degree. To earn graduate-level credit as a matriculated student, courses in the Department of Art History and Archaeology must be taken at the 300 level or higher.
• Academic electives must be taken at the 400 or 500 level to earn graduate credit.

Students may not register for courses in University College.

• Drawing: Art Practice
• Drawing: Art Practice (Collage: History and Practice in Contemporary Art)
• Painting: Art Practice
• Painting: Art Practice
• Sculpture: Art Practice
• Sculpture: Foundry
• Sculpture: Blacksmithing
• Sculpture: Metal Fabrication
• Matter in Hand Workshop
• Matter in Hand Workshop
• Sculpture: Foundry
• Sculpture: Metal Fabrication
• Sculpture: Art Practice
• Printmaking: Art Practice
• Printmaking: Art Practice
• Photography: Art Practice
• Kinetic Image/Digital Video
• Photography: Art Practice
• History of Photography
• Time-Based Media: Art Practice
• Tale of Two Cities: Documenting Our Divides
• Time-Based Media: Art Practice (New Media In Art)
• Interaction Design: Applications for Public Health
• Communication Design I
• Introduction to Animating in Three Dimensions
• Interaction Design: Understanding Health and Well-Being
• Communication Design I
• History of Communication Design
• Graduate Studio
• Fiber and Form in the 21st Century
• BookLab
• The Illustrated Book: Design and Production
• A Context for Artmaking
• Contemporary Berlin: An Introduction to its Language and Culture
• Introduction to Letterpress Printing
• Introduction to Book Binding
• Book Arts: Art Practice (The Visual Book)
• Art-ivism
• Public Practice: Art Practice
• Public Practice: Art Practice (Realized Actions)
• Painting
• Sculpture: Blacksmithing
• Sculpture: Metal Fabrication
• Matter in Hand Workshop
• Digital Photography
• Ceramics
• Introduction to Animating in Three Dimensions
• Interaction Design: Understanding Health and Well-Being
• History of Communication Design
• Fiber and Form in the 21st Century
• Thesis
• Thesis Seminar: Giving Form to Opinions
• Public Practice: Art Practice (Realized Actions)

Requirements

• All candidates must submit an online application.
• Personal information.
• A statement of objective of educational and career goals.
• A resume/curriculum vita (to include education and employment history, honors, awards, and extracurricular activities).
• Three letters of recommendation, to be completed by individuals who know the personal and academic qualities of the applicant (preferably—although not necessarily—academic instructors). These three letters will be submitted through the online application process. Please note that, along with other contact information, the applicant will need to provide each recommender's accurate e-mail address.
• A nonrefundable $85 application fee. Note: The $85 application fee will be waived for applicants who complete their online application by November 30. Beginning December 1, the application fee is $85, and must be paid online by credit card.
• Official transcripts. Upload a digital copy (PDF format) of transcripts from all college and universities attended. When submitting academic records from multiple schools, please organize those records for submission as a single PDF. Only those applicants who are admitted and plan to enroll will be asked to send official, hard-copy transcripts to our office by August 1.
• Applicants may be admitted to the MFA program upon completion of the BFA degree or equivalent academic preparation. Specific requirements include: a minimum of 9 credits of Art History, grade point average above 3.0, and good writing skills. No applicant will be considered for admission until all required items have been received by the Graduate School of Art
• Portfolio. A digital portfolio showing examples of design work or work in the visual arts must be uploaded to our online application system. Please review our instructions below carefully. The work represented in the portfolio—whether it includes drawings, photographs of architectural models, or artwork (including various types of media such as paintings, sculpture, ceramics, or photography)—should be the best examples of the applicant's efforts. Applicants who have not studied architecture previously should submit at least 15 examples of work in the visual arts and—if available—in the constructive arts (for example, photographs and drawings from small, three-dimensional built projects such as furniture, kiosks, or decks.) The overall intention is to show work that demonstrates potential for accomplishment in further creative study. Applicants who have pursued formal studies in architecture or landscape architecture must include examples of their design work related to those areas but are also welcome to include examples of other artistic endeavors.Important: Applicants submitting work done collaboratively, either in school or in the profession, should be as specific as possible about the extent of their personal involvement in such projects.
• Test for English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) with a minimum score of 90 on the internet-based test, 577 on the paper-based test, or 233 on the computer-based test.
• International English Language Testing System (IELTS) Academic module with a minimum score of 7.5.

Scholarships

• Chancellor's Graduate Fellowship Program
• Need-based financial aid assistance
• Merit-based scholarships