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Master of Fine Arts: 2D Fine Arts
The program promotes critical responsiveness and independence and provides an intense working environment within which each student can pursue their own direction.
The foundation of the Fine Arts 2D Graduate Studio is centered around the student's individual course of study, which is guided by personal interest, intention, and vision. The Studio's collaborative educational structure is designed to challenge, develop, and encourage the evolution of each student's voice through an interplay between study, creative work, and critical discourse.
2D Graduate Critiques at MassArt are viewed as creative acts. The critical dialog between students, faculty, and visiting artists takes place within the framework of the studio, class, critique, lecture, presentation, and field trips. This approach focuses on illuminating each artist's work and practice in order to develop perspective and empathy.
Learning Outcomes
- Establish one’s own creative studio practice that is grounded in knowledge and derived from focused and immersive experience of seeing, thinking and doing. This work is centered in and guided by a student’s own interest and sensibilities
- Produce artwork that is original and goes beyond a student’s status quo
- Produce artwork in which subject, concept, form and content interlock
- Develop technical, perceptual, and conceptual awareness and skills
- Understand one’s work in relation to contemporary art and art history
- Develop the ability to critique peers’ work across disciplines
- 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
- Make coherent, thoughtful and insightful visual and verbal presentations of ones work that demonstrate knowledge of the key issues related to one’s work. These issues include and how one’s work is situated in time and place, and the context of one’s work in terms of concept, material, process, form and style
- Exhibit one’s work in a professional manner in the thesis exhibition. Work with other students organizing, curating, installing and exhibiting work in the college’s exhibition spaces or other venues
- Understand a range of professional pathways for careers in the arts
- 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
Unique to MassArt
The following components constitute the 2D Graduate Studio:
- Daily creative work within a personal on-campus studio
- Weekly individual tutorials with two resident faculty
- 3-5 tutorials with visiting artists each semester
- 1 in progress individual critique with students and faculty each semester
- 2-3 topic guided group critiques per semester
- 1 museum, gallery visit or field trip each semester
- FA2D Visiting Artist Lecture Series
- 1 final individual Review Board Critique with faculty, guest critic, and students each semester
- 1 Thesis Exhibition in the spring of second year