Theory and Practice of Painting

This program offers both theory and practice around the value of painting as a vital medium in contemporary visual studies. Students can expect a rigorous curriculum that includes conceptual and technical skills in painting and drawing through instruction, assignments, critique, and an integrated overview of critical visual studies. The emphasis will be on thinking with the materiality of the medium of painting (its temporal, bodily, and formal attributes) in relation to its social, historical, and contemporary visual contexts that include current discourses around the complexities of representation. There will be lecture, reading, seminar, and writing along with studio production and critique. We will attend the Art Lecture Series where a range of interdisciplinary artists, writers, and scholars present their work, process, and research. Students can expect to gain aptitudes in visual literacy in regards to the interdependence of form and content, painting and drawing skills, a general understanding of art historical concepts in contemporary context, verbal critique, essay writing, and critical reasoning. There will be an overnight field trip to Seattle or Portland to visit artists' studios and museum and gallery exhibitions.