Visual Art, MFA

(60 credits)

Program Description

The low-residency Visual Art program at the Institute of Art and Design at New England College challenges and supports students in developing their art both technically and conceptually. Each area of study is constructed with the aim for the student to either immerse themselves in a specific discipline or to explore a range of different creative avenues. Incorporating both studio practice and critical theory, the primary concern of the MFA Visual Art program is that the student develops a critical awareness of their work to better understand the current social, intellectual and aesthetic conditions that informs their individual creative practice, and effectively situate it within a contemporary context.

Areas of Study

1. Drawing/Painting/Printmaking
2. Photography/Time Based Art
3. Sculptural Practices/Installation Practices/Ceramics

Learning Outcomes

Graduate students in Visual Art will:

1. Produce original and influential work that is rigorous, conceptual, and tailored to the 21st century creative discourse 
2. Apply technical skills appropriate to medium, subject, and conceptual concerns  
3. Demonstrate committed, disciplined studio practice and full engagement in the intentional formal presentation of one’s creative work, relevant to the discipline  
4. Demonstrate an ability to actively, and fully, engage in individual and group discussions, including thoughtful participation, intentional listening, and receptiveness to constructive dialog and critique  
5. Demonstrate an understanding of creative work relative to historical and contemporary practice and demonstrate an awareness that the work produced exists within a broader social context  
6. Demonstrate expanded formal and conceptual exploration, applying those connections to one’s own practice by drawing inspiration and/or differentiation from a wide range of formal strategies and ways of constructing meaning  
7. Develop an inventive, individualized, flexible, and entrepreneurial plan for maintaining a sustained creative practice  
8. Demonstrate an awareness of the artist’s role as one of local and global citizen. Social and global awareness includes an understanding that power structures operate through communication in the creation of meaning and therefore in the making and interpretation of works