Drawing, Painting and Printmaking B.F.A.

The Drawing and Painting concentration hosts diverse media-specific and conceptually focused classes, dedicated classroom studios and a project/critique space. A stylistically diverse faculty offers courses in specific media and material content—oil-based, water-based, life drawing, digital possibilities—as well as concept-driven courses such as “Figure as Content,” “Sound and Radio,” “Anthropocene Studies,” “Research Methodologies,” “Maps and Messages,” “Science + Art” and more. Philosophically, the faculty engender a range of visual expression, media experimentation, social practice and conceptual art—all grounded in traditional technical training.

Faculty areas of expertise include classical drawing, mixed-media, collage, video, sound, animation, trompe l’oeil /ultra realist and abstract painting, sculpture and installation. A range of international travel programs have been hosted by area faculty and student internships are supported by faculty.

The Printmaking curriculum introduces students to cross-disciplinary modes of working while enhancing their understanding of foundational principles of design and the importance and beauty of method, process, discipline, repetition and perseverance.

Emphasis is placed on mastering the elements of mark-making while encouraging variation and risk-taking with the tools at hand. Stressing the notion of drawing and the formal elements of process and design as a language, the faculty encourage students to broaden their vocabulary and fluency in the medium, honing and translating their perceptions of a tangible world into legible and poetic works. Students look at the history of art and the tradition of printmaking in order to trace the evolution of the medium to the position it now enjoys as a vibrant and viable means of creating contemporary art. They are taught technique and concept through discussions, demos, examples, museum/studio/gallery visits and readings that demonstrate the uses of print-based techniques for image-making, which serves as a vehicle for learning and the proliferation of meaning and messages, taking cues from all aspects of the contemporary political, philosophical and social sphere. Students gain technical skill and are shown methods of employing the techniques unique to printmaking’s fundamental processes to make work that marries form and content in meaningful ways and when appropriate reaches beyond the confines of the traditional print.

The Printmaking area cultivates a culture of collaboration and is enhanced by a student-run organization, Printmaker’s Workshop, which organizes trips to conferences, museums and studios in Atlanta and beyond.