The foundation of our MFA Studio Arts program is an individualized education that helps each student develop artistic vision and voice.
Our full-time, two-year (60-credit) MFA Studio Arts program encourages students to experiment and explore, while refining the technical and conceptual strategies in their work. Students may choose one of three concentrations, in the areas of Painting, Printmaking, or Sculpture.
Students are encouraged and challenged, and through rigorous study, creative exploration, and critical discourse, each artist’s body of work deepens and evolves, along with the student’s ability to place their work in the context of contemporary practice.
Dialogue and critique are key components of an education in the studio arts, and at MassArt critique is viewed as a creative act. The rich dialogue among students, faculty, visiting artists, and critics takes place within the framework of core classes, electives, presentations, and excursions off campus. Our approach illuminates new pathways for each artist’s work, helping students to build a sustainable practice, and to develop perspective and empathy as artist citizens of the world.
Studio Arts MFA Learning Outcomes
- Understand perceptual, formal, and conceptual approaches to painting and printmaking
- Demonstrate technical and material proficiency in drawing, painting, and printmaking
- Strengthen visual analysis and verbal articulation skills in relation to artistic practice
- Understand and appreciate diverse, historical, contemporary practices, and the artist’s role in society
- Develop a unique body of work that reflects authentic perspectives
- Comprehend the histories of Painting and Printmaking as technological/material/conceptual developments that are tied to geography, time, and larger ideologies
- Develop strategies that encompass the role of investigation and experimentation in creative practice
- Demonstrate best practices in the studio, including health and safety
- Acquire professional skills for sustainable studio practices beyond school
Students are encouraged and challenged, and through rigorous study, creative exploration, and critical discourse, each artist’s body of work deepens and evolves, along with the student’s ability to place their work in the context of contemporary practice.
In our MFA Studio Arts program Sculpture concentration, you’ll explore sculptural mediums using our exceptional facilities in glass, clay, wood, and metal, and more.
MassArt’s full-time, two-year (60 credit) MFA Studio Arts program is committed to an expanded understanding of the sculptural medium.
With the support of faculty working across a range of media and disciplines, students engage in rigorous experimentation and collaboration, and the resulting work–from clay vessels to collaborative performance–reflects a highly personal investigation. Students with an expanded sense of practice are also encouraged to explore technology, performance, and the moving image as possible vehicles for their ideas.
Dialogue and critique are key components of an education in the studio arts, and at MassArt critique is viewed as a creative act. The rich dialogue among students, faculty, visiting artists, and critics takes place within the framework of core classes, electives, presentations, and excursions off campus. Our approach illuminates new pathways for each artist’s work, helping students to build a sustainable practice, and to develop perspective and empathy as artist citizens of the world.
Studio Arts MFA Learning Outcomes
- Create one’s own 21st century studio practice based upon one’s own personal vision and imagination. Understand being and artist using life and studio experience, as well as research, to support ideas
- Explore, research and experiment with new media and processes
- Understand a wide range of approaches and methodologies to 3D problem solving
- Develop craftsmanship. Learn to safely use tools, equipment, materials and processes
- Develop a sophisticated understanding of conceptual, symbolic and metaphorical issues
- Understand one’s work in relation to contemporary art and art history
- Develop the ability to critique peers’ work across disciplines and participate in critical dialogue with peers in their fields
- Develop awareness and understanding of the diverse cultural, historical, and experiential issues expressed and inherent in one’s own artwork and in that of one’s peers
- Prepare and present a professional level artists talk in conjunction with the Thesis Exhibition
- Exhibit one’s work in a professional manner in the thesis exhibition. Students may also participate in other exhibitions and curatorial opportunities at the college or other venues
- Assume the responsibility for development of a professional career in the arts, developing professional and vocation resources
- Develop knowledge of major historical and cultural characteristics of specific times /places. Infer relationships between society and art
- Recognize various types of texts used in art historical analysis, and evaluate their content and effectiveness. Use various ideas, approaches and facts in the analysis of art. Formulate, research and argue a hypothesis. Articulate verbally and in writing, theoretical and critical perspectives on art
- Recognize the impact of historical works of art on contemporary art
- Draw connections between various artworks, artists and concepts
- Collaborate with artists in other disciplines
Studio Arts MFA Faculty
Catarina Coelho
Visiting Lecturer, Fine Arts 2DElizabeth Mooney
Assistant Professor, MFA Low ResidencyWendy Jacob
Graduate Program Director, Fine Arts 3DAnjali Srinivasan
Associate Professor, Glass- First Time Undergraduates
- Transfer Students
- Re-admission Candidates
- International Students
- Graduate Students
- Certificate Students
- Resources for Veterans
- Admissions Policies
- Meet the Admissions Team
- Admissions Events
- Resources for Teachers & Counselors
- Accepted Students
- FAQs
- Schedule Your Visit
- Request Information