Fine Arts
Bachelor of Fine Arts
in Fine Arts
Teaching art is about initiating total involvement, passion, questioning and questioning the questioning, experimenting, process, investigating ideas, inventing and finding visual answers.
– Véronique Devoldère, Chair of Fine Arts
With Paris as its extraordinarily rich cultural setting, the PCA Fine Arts Department promotes the development of artistic skills, the expression of creative processes, and an informed awareness of how art practice intersects with current visual, cultural and societal concerns.
Students gain a strong foundation in the artistic tradition via both established and new media, thus enriching their capacity for communication and expression as a whole. The curriculum balances a full investigation of traditional media: drawing, painting and sculpture, with extensive explorations in video, installation, performance, photography and digital imaging. The new focus program in the junior year allows students to choose a 2D, 3D or 4D orientation. Elective courses in other departments open students to new and different methods and processes. Interdisciplinary practice provokes students to pursue and develop individual artistic modes of inquiry.
Application of theory and criticism shape students’ ability to work and think critically and analytically. Courses in Art History and Critical Studies, critiques, debates and tutorials, and the considerable resources available in Paris, direct students to an informed exploration within both historical and contemporary art practices. Museum and gallery visits are an integral aspect of the curriculum.
At the completion of their sophomore year, students can apply for transfer to Anna Maria College’s BA in Art Therapy, through a special articulation agreement between the two institutions.
Faculty
Curriculum
Foundation
fall
Drawing I
Drawing–across all first year studio courses and in every progression track at PCA–is considered a fundamental discipline for creative practice. The aim is to give students both a vital course in traditional skills and an introduction to contemporary and emerging approaches to drawing. Included in this class are subject specific workshops such as: digital illustration, gesture/dance, experimental fashion drawing, drawing and film. The purpose of this course is to instill a lively and inspired discipline that students will continue to practice in many forms beyond their foundation year.
Materials and Dimensions I
This course is an introduction to dimensions in art and design (2D, 3D, and Photography) through material processes. Over the course of the semester students rotate for one month through three discipline areas. A common theme links the three courses and projects overlap and develop progressively. All first years take part in a joint critique of their work. Students are taught how to use practical tools and shown methods for handling materials that provide concrete starting points for creative practice. These include, but are not limited to: book-making, basic printmaking, black and white printing, sewing inductions, and the operation of woodwork machinery.
City as Studio
Students explore their immediate neighbourhood and the city at large as a site of inspiration. The city and its spaces become an extended classroom. Students respond to a theme designed to encourage interaction and integration with their surroundings and new, unexpected ways of looking at their environment. Site visits, walks, lectures, readings, and practical exercises guide students through different approaches to the creative process with the aim that they develop their own methodologies and engage with the city as potential artists and/or designers. In the final project, students respond to the brief using the medium of their choice.
Introduction to Digital Media I
This course aims to equip all first year students with the necessary skills and confidence to be able to use digital tools. The curriculum is project-led and structured so that students can apply their growing skill-set to realize their ideas. All projects are contextualized with examples of work by contemporary artists and designers who are working with digital media. Students are introduced to the possibilities for digital tools as part of their creative work.
Introduction to Art & Design
This course introduces students to themes and topics relevant to the production and reception of the art and design disciplines taught at PCA. Using art and design objects located in Parisian collections as the basis for visual, contextual and cultural analysis, students will develop ways of seeing, contextualizing and describing art and design, while tackling a common set of issues, including but not limited to: chronology, style, authorship, form, function, composition, originality, narrative, and the decorative. Students will be guided as to how to conduct research in local collections and libraries and will produce a short contextually-oriented research paper on an art or design object or an artist or designer based on first-hand access to the object, artist, designer and archives.
Critical Thinking & Writing I
This year-long course is designed to improve critical thinking, reading, and writing skills. Students learn to understand the inherent argument and logic of a text, to think more systematically and critically, and to write more effectively by developing skills in the structure, grammar, and mechanics of writing. Students also work toward the more focused goal of situating design and art practices within larger intellectual, historical and philosophical frameworks by exploring the indissoluble connection between ideas and the products of human culture. This is achieved by introducing students to texts representing and describing various methodologies applicable to art and design, which can then be used to critique and analyze visual and material artifacts.
spring
Drawing II
Students require the fluency and confidence in the act of drawing developed in Drawing I in order to engage in more ambitious work. Drawing classes are designed to relate directly to art and design specialisms (Fine Art, Illustration, Fashion, Interior Design, Communication Design and Photography). Students are encouraged to take a self-motivated and questioning approach to drawing; equipped with the basic skills they become increasingly open to experimentation and the potential to communicate in many forms. Through a series of workshops stereotypical ways of thinking and seeing are challenged so that students understand drawing as an activity that continues to be relevant and re-invented.
Introduction To Digital Media II
Students develop projects with a growing complexity, employing the computer less as a tool and more as a medium to be manipulated with greater confidence and control. The aim of the course is to create an awareness of the potential for digital techniques to solve visual and communication problems. Advanced skills are taught during the Semester that support and encourage an ambitious approach to the digital field. Students integrate digital and non-digital practice and explore mixing different softwares and media. All projects are contextualized with examples of work by contemporary artists and designers who are working with digital media. By the end of the course all students are confident to use digital tools as part of their creative work.
Materials & Dimensions II
Depending on the individual student’s interests they will enroll in either the 2D or 3D focus of Materials and Dimensions II:
Materials and Dimensions II: Printmaking
Building on the practical knowledge acquired in ‘Materials and Dimensions I’, students develop their ideas with more autonomy, through more personal projects, whilst being supported by the technical expertise of their instructor.
The course focuses on the relationship between design, process and final outcome in two dimensions through color. Students are taught to search for the most effective and pertinent way to communicate their ideas.
Through printmaking explorations students investigate image-making as a multi-layered creative process that enables them to transform and push their work forward in all areas of 2-dimensional image-making.
Materials and Dimensions II: Photography
Building on the practical knowledge acquired in ‘Materials and Dimensions I’, students develop their ideas with more autonomy, through more personal projects, whilst being supported by the technical expertise of their instructors.
The course focuses on the relationship between design, process and final outcome in two dimensions in photography. Students are taught to search for the most effective and pertinent way to communicate their ideas.
Explorations of analog and digital techniques encourage students to investigate image-making as a multi-layered creative process which will enable them to transform and push their work forward in all areas of 2-dimensional image-making.
Materials and Dimensions II: 3D
Building on the practical knowledge acquired in ‘Materials and Dimensions I’, develop their ideas with more autonomy whilst being supported by the technical expertise of their instructors.
With a specific focus on ‘The Body’ students are introduced to the many ways that the human form is central to art and design practices, whether it is in the design of clothes, products, buildings, or furniture. Students gain an understanding of the different possibilities for 3D Design (architecture, fashion, product design, furniture, fine art sculpture).
Projects are based on investigations into how the physical structure, dimensions, and the functions of the human body inspire and direct the design of forms. The influence of context and environment on the generation and development of ideas will be essential to the work. Students experiment with the potential and limitations of materials and different material combinations through a study of color.
Foundation Year Departmental Elective
In addition to the required curriculum, in the spring semester students are encouraged to take an elective in the area of study they are considering entering in sophomore year. Course offerings are listed below:
Paris Yesterday and Tomorrow: history, art and urban culture
This course acquaints students with the neighborhoods, cultures, people, customs, institutions and organizations in Paris through a thematic approach based on three main modules: the city and its history; the literary and artistic representations of the city; the city, its citizens, and its future. Students will learn about key moments in French history, from the Romans on, via the Middle Ages, the Revolution, Haussmannization, and May 1968; they will be introduced to such themes as political migrations and colonialism, and will explore the city from a variety of points of views including literary and artistic exchanges, urban history, architecture, and ecology. Active exploration of the environment is strongly encouraged and learning is accomplished through a variety of means: site visits, the examination of texts and images, and first-hand encounters with museums, galleries, and libraries, as well as other art and design-related resources in the city.
Critical Thinking & Writing II
This year-long course is designed to improve critical thinking, reading, and writing skills. Students learn to understand the inherent argument and logic of a text, to think more systematically and critically, and to write more effectively by developing skills in the structure, grammar, and mechanics of writing. Students also work toward the more focused goal of situating design and art practices within larger intellectual, historical and philosophical frameworks by exploring the indissoluble connection between ideas and the products of human culture. This is achieved by introducing students to texts representing and describing various methodologies applicable to art and design, which can then be used to critique and analyze visual and material artifacts.
Sophomore Year
fall
Sophomore Studio I
From Objects to Abstraction: Draw the line to forget it
Working away from the stretched canvas to different structures and surfaces, exploring scale and more site-specific projects, introducing the notion of space within a 2D context, this course will address in class systematically formal painting issues, i.e.; texture, mark, scale, color, composition etc. These issues will accompany important themes in Contemporary Art without replacing them. This undergraduate painting course aims to enable each student to pursue their ideas in and around painting in all its forms is the most committed, imaginative and experimental way. Work may manifest itself in a wide variety of different mediums and materials. This course engages with and contributes to the change and development in the expanded field of art. Although its core concern is with practice, it promotes the hybrid nature of current art practices by exploring the boundaries of, and the interface between, art and critical ideas. Furthermore, this class aims to develop the individualization of the students’ pictorial language.
Prerequisites: Foundation Core studios/2D Studio 1
Sophomore Sculpture I
The course will revolve around presentations and assignments to create a platform for analyzing your own emerging practice and learning how to pinpoint and develop themes from within it. The second half of the course will encourage the development of your personal areas of interest through dialogue, peer review and personal tutorial. Sculpture will be approached as a process of materializing and actualizing connection to Spaces and Objects (including politics, humans, histories…) and will reassess classical connotations of sculptural form by opening them to a wider range of issues coming from video, architecture, document and research approaches to art-making.
Following the first semester’s discussions on independent practice, the spring semester will focus on strengthening students’ personal artistic language and ability to locate and isolate relevant research topics either through intuitive, logical or thematic thinking.
Prerequisites : Foundation Core studios
Sophomore Drawing I
This course is designed to build on existing technical knowledge and skills, facilitating a more focused approach to the relationship between creative technology and practice. The course seeks to explore drawing within contemporary fine art practice. The workshops will focus on the process of drawing as concept, drawing as subject matter, drawing to create or define context, drawing as source and resource to develop a personal expressive language.
The aims of the course are to extend advanced and technical knowledge, to encourage a broad range of unfamiliar materials, process and to facilitate experimentation. Research methods will be introduced to support your projects and to encourage a critical approach/response to ideas.
Instruction is delivered through studio sessions, site work, teaching events and demonstrations, and coordinates thematically with other coursework in the sophomore year curriculum.
Prerequisites : Foundation Core studios
Moving Image I
The video course is organized as a creative workshop, where students are encouraged to engage quickly in a personal research. A strong involvement is necessary to achieve any 4D project including in-class tutorials and independent work.
The first semester will be devoted to technical familiarization with the different filming tools, recording sound, and linear editing, in order to acquire spontaneity. The goal for this first term is to develop all the technical skills and create automatisms to best serve the video practice. Students will be encouraged to use their personal filming tools (smartphones, regular consumer cameras, etc.), as basic as they could seem, to allow a common and natural usage. The collected imagery and sound will serve students all year to build their personal research and artistic proposals.
We will see how different artists create images from three constitutive elements: light, space, and time. We will learn that an image cannot be simply reduced to the broadcast visual element, but includes the contextual presentation. We will discuss the importance of the distribution of light and colors in the development of this overall picture, which will introduce the space, set design and the role of the spectator. We will approach the various possible temporal modalities of the image broadcast: real-time, delayed linear continuity, disruptive continuity (interactivity, random images, etc.), and their influence on the space and the spectator.
Prerequisite: Foundation Core studios
Introduction To Visual Culture
This interdisciplinary course explores the rise of visual media, communication and information, within the context of a broad cultural shift away from the verbal and textual toward the visual, which has taken place since the advent of photography and cinema in the late 19th century, through the birth of television, to the present proliferation of digital media worldwide. We will consider the critical practices of looking, historicizing and interpreting that have accompanied this ‘visual turn’. Our readings will primarily address the theoretical foundations of the study of visual culture, which is understood to incorporate a variety of visual media and visual technologies: painting and sculpture, scientific imagery, material culture, the internet. If everything can be visual culture, what remains of traditional notions of medium specificity? What critical tools must be invented to analyze visual events from a visual cultural perspective? The relationship between the visual arts and visual media, especially with respect to the ‘global’ contemporary visual landscape, will be a focus of this course.
spring
Sophomore Studio II
From Objects to Abstraction: Draw the line to forget it
Working away from the stretched canvas to different structures and surfaces, exploring scale and more site-specific projects, introducing the notion of space within a 2D context, this course will address in class systematically formal painting issues, i.e.; texture, mark, scale, color, composition etc. These issues will accompany important themes in Contemporary Art without replacing them. This undergraduate painting course aims to enable each student to pursue their ideas in and around painting in all its forms is the most committed, imaginative and experimental way. Work may manifest itself in a wide variety of different mediums and materials. This course engages with and contributes to the change and development in the expanded field of art. Although its core concern is with practice, it promotes the hybrid nature of current art practices by exploring the boundaries of, and the interface between, art and critical ideas. Furthermore, this class aims to develop the individualization of the students’ pictorial language.
Prerequisites: Foundation Core studios/2D Studio 1
Sophomore Sculpture II
Following the first semester’s discussions on independent practice, the spring semester will focus on strengthening students’ personal artistic language and ability to locate and isolate relevant research topics either through intuitive, logical or thematic thinking.
Sculpture will be approached as a process of materializing and actualizing connection to Spaces and Objects (including politics, humans, histories…) and will reassess classical connotations of sculptural form by opening them to a wider range of issues coming from video, architecture, document and research approaches to art-making.
Prerequisites: Foundation Core studios/Sophomore Sculpture 1
Sophomore Drawing II
This course is designed to build on existing technical knowledge and skills, facilitating a more focused approach to the relationship between creative technology and practice. The course seeks to explore drawing within contemporary fine art practice. The workshops will focus on the process of drawing as concept, drawing as subject matter, drawing to create or define context, drawing as source and resource to develop a personal expressive language.
The aims of the course are to extend advanced and technical knowledge, to encourage a broad range of unfamiliar materials, process and to facilitate experimentation. Research methods will be introduced to support your projects and to encourage a critical approach/response to ideas.
Instruction is delivered through studio sessions, site work, teaching events and demonstrations, and coordinates thematically with other coursework in the sophomore year curriculum.
Prerequisites: Foundation Core studios/Sophomore Drawing 1
Studio Elective
You may select an elective from the many course offerings in your department or in other departments with the approval of your department chair.
Liberal Studies Elective
You may select an elective from the many liberal studies course offerings. Go to the Liberal Studies department page for more information.
Art History Elective
You may select an elective from the many liberal studies course offerings. Go to the Liberal Studies department page for more information.
Junior Year Option — 2D Focus
fall
Studio Concepts I
The Studio Concepts course challenges and encourages the students to explore the different creative processes and contemporary artistic practices. Open to research all media ranging from painting, drawing to photography and video, from objects, sculpture to installations and any un-familiar propositions, the students may experience and develop their ideas that emerge spontaneously out of experimentation and process. Through research and reference the students need to justify and document their ideas and proposals. The projects will include concepts and process; develop context and ideas.
The aim of the studio concept course is to encourage and enable students to create an individual and critical approach/response to ideas and tasks, spanning all disciplines and to assure an underlying connection to the student’s construction and deconstruction of their chosen areas and personal practice.
Prerequisites: Sophomore Core Studios
Painting: Interactions I
In order to evolve and discover new pictorial horizons painting today must remain open to the possibility of a dialogue with the wide range of multidisciplinary influences that are available. Where once the field of exploration was defined by the rigueur and strict dictates of a formal training.
The strength of painting today lies in its flexibility to use such training and adapt to the influences of other 2D and 3D disciplines and the pictorial possibilities that they offer as art experience. The possibility to create an art experience through research, experimentation and interaction are the key components in the junior year in painting. With this as a core component the dynamics of painting are explored through a variety of set projects designed to stimulate the individual imagination.
Prerequisites: Sophomore year painting
Creative & Experimental Drawing
This course will focus on the actual drawing process as concept and experimental research as resource. Drawing as the subject matter, drawing context and the actual drawing practice to develop new ways of expression and mixing media, new ways to appropriate the act of drawing. This course is not about drawing “things”, but to encourage students to explore the actual physicality of making a drawing or to question the physical involvement of drawing; to explore existing and reinventing new methods, ideas or processes simultaneously. Through different exercises, in class workshops or given assignments the students can invent and develop a personal language and propose new ideas, make links between media and technologies.
Prerequisites: Sophomore year drawing, advanced drawing skills
Liberal Studies Electives
You may select an elective from the many liberal studies course offerings. Go to the Liberal Studies department page for more information.
spring
Studio Concepts II
The Studio Concepts course challenges and encourages the students to explore the different creative processes and contemporary artistic practices. Open to research all media ranging from painting, drawing to photography and video, from objects, sculpture to installations and any un-familiar propositions, the students may experience and develop their ideas that emerge spontaneously out of experimentation and process.
Through research and reference the students need to justify and document their ideas and proposals. The projects will include concepts and process; develop context and ideas.
The aim of the studio concept course is to encourage and enable students to create an individual and critical approach/response to ideas and tasks, spanning all disciplines and to assure an underlying connection to the student’s construction and deconstruction of their chosen areas and personal practice.
Prerequisites: Sophomore Core Studios/Studio Concepts 1
Painting: Interactions II
In order to evolve and discover new pictorial horizons painting today must remain open to the possibility of a dialogue with the wide range of multidisciplinary influences that are available. Where once the field of exploration was defined by the rigueur and strict dictates of a formal training,
the strength of painting today lies in its flexibility to use such a training and adapt to the influences of other 2D and 3D disciplines and the pictorial possibilities that they offer as art experience. The possibility to create an art experience through research, experimentation and interaction are the key
components in the junior year in painting. With this as a core component the dynamics of painting are explored through a variety of set projects designed to stimulate the individual imagination.
Prerequisites: Sophomore year painting/Painting Interactions 1
Studio Elective
You may select an elective from the many course offerings in your department or in other departments with the approval of your department chair.
Liberal Studies Electives
You may select an elective from the many liberal studies course offerings. Go to the Liberal Studies department page for more information.
Junior Year Option — 3D Focus
fall
Studio Concepts I
The Studio Concepts course challenges and encourages the students to explore the different creative processes and contemporary artistic practices. Open to research all media ranging from painting, drawing to photography and video, from objects, sculpture to installations and any un-familiar propositions, the students may experience and develop their ideas that emerge spontaneously out of experimentation and process. Through research and reference the students need to justify and document their ideas and proposals. The projects will include concepts and process; develop context and ideas.
The aim of the studio concept course is to encourage and enable students to create an individual and critical approach/response to ideas and tasks, spanning all disciplines and to assure an underlying connection to the student’s construction and deconstruction of their chosen areas and personal practice.
Prerequisites: Sophomore Core Studios
Junior Sculpture I
This course aims make aware students of certain issues in contemporary sculpture and gives them the technical and conceptual means to develop a more personal language and identity. Students are encouraged to experiment with different approaches, media and concepts and continue to explore technical skills necessary to conceiving and executing sculptural work. Over the course of the semester students are encouraged to develop and pursue a personal sensibility within their artistic research.
Prerequisites : Sophomore Sculpture
Ceramic Sculpture: Materials
This course will focus on the making of sculptural form and installation work with clay, in the art context, and shall encourage the use of varied mediums and materials to combine with clay. It is based on the exploration of different subject matters and the acquisitions of technical skills.
The first semester will be focusing on experimentations. An important part of the program is based on showing students how to work in a studio space and become independent.?This course will encourage personal research and creativity in the making, and push students in exploring, clarifying and exalting their personality and qualities.
Prerequisites: Sophomore year sculpture
Liberal Studies Electives
You may select an elective from the many liberal studies course offerings. Go to the Liberal Studies department page for more information.
spring
Studio Concepts II
The Studio Concepts course challenges and encourages the students to explore the different creative processes and contemporary artistic practices. Open to research all media ranging from painting, drawing to photography and video, from objects, sculpture to installations and any un-familiar propositions, the students may experience and develop their ideas that emerge spontaneously out of experimentation and process.
Through research and reference the students need to justify and document their ideas and proposals. The projects will include concepts and process; develop context and ideas.
The aim of the studio concept course is to encourage and enable students to create an individual and critical approach/response to ideas and tasks, spanning all disciplines and to assure an underlying connection to the student’s construction and deconstruction of their chosen areas and personal practice.
Prerequisites: Sophomore Core Studios/Studio Concepts 1
Junior Sculpture II
This course aims make aware students of certain issues in contemporary sculpture and gives them the technical and conceptual means to develop a more personal language and identity. Students are encouraged to experiment with different approaches, media and concepts and continue to explore technical skills necessary to conceiving and executing sculptural work. Over the course of the semester students are encouraged to develop and pursue a personal sensibility within their artistic research.
Prerequisites: Sophomore year sculpture/Junior Sculpture1
Studio Elective
You may select an elective from the many course offerings in your department or in other departments with the approval of your department chair.
Liberal Studies Electives
You may select an elective from the many liberal studies course offerings. Go to the Liberal Studies department page for more information.
Junior Year Option — 4D Focus
fall
Studio Concepts I
The Studio Concepts course challenges and encourages the students to explore the different creative processes and contemporary artistic practices. Open to research all media ranging from painting, drawing to photography and video, from objects, sculpture to installations and any un-familiar propositions, the students may experience and develop their ideas that emerge spontaneously out of experimentation and process. Through research and reference the students need to justify and document their ideas and proposals. The projects will include concepts and process; develop context and ideas.
The aim of the studio concept course is to encourage and enable students to create an individual and critical approach/response to ideas and tasks, spanning all disciplines and to assure an underlying connection to the student’s construction and deconstruction of their chosen areas and personal practice.
Prerequisites: Sophomore Core Studios
4D Studio: Video I
This required Junior studio provides a highly-intensive introduction to video production. The fall course is an investigation of the moving image as an art form. Students will revise the basics of the language of film by further developing methodology and technical skills necessary to produce their own videos and animations. Throughout the course, students will be exposed to artists working in the field and will consider filmmaking and animation in relation to Fine Arts. Students will participate in all aspects of digital, time-based media production including concept development, storyboarding, shooting, editing, screening of final works and DVD authoring.
Prerequisites: Sophomore Core Video 1 & 2
Performance
This course will explore performance as a way to embody all artistic practices, as well as consider this particular medium as a resource, extension, or another expanded form. The course encourages cross-disciplinary exploration and the development of personal projects. Introducing the methodology and tools necessary to support performance with the aim to enhance individual skills in relation to performing and public presentation.
Fields as varied as music, science, or literature can be drawn on to develop unique performance practices.
Liberal Studies Electives
You may select an elective from the many liberal studies course offerings. Go to the Liberal Studies department page for more information.
spring
Studio Concepts II
The Studio Concepts course challenges and encourages the students to explore the different creative processes and contemporary artistic practices. Open to research all media ranging from painting, drawing to photography and video, from objects, sculpture to installations and any un-familiar propositions, the students may experience and develop their ideas that emerge spontaneously out of experimentation and process.
Through research and reference the students need to justify and document their ideas and proposals. The projects will include concepts and process; develop context and ideas.
The aim of the studio concept course is to encourage and enable students to create an individual and critical approach/response to ideas and tasks, spanning all disciplines and to assure an underlying connection to the student’s construction and deconstruction of their chosen areas and personal practice.
Prerequisites: Sophomore Core Studios/Studio Concepts 1
4D Studio: Video II
The spring course will introduce students on the various concepts, methodologies and tools within the context of live video production, live performance and interactive installations. Students will approach the different possible temporal modalities of broadcast image: real time, deferred, linear or disruptive continuity and the influence of these temporal modalities on the space and place of the audience.
Prerequisites: Sophomore Core Studios & Digital skills
Studio Elective
You may select an elective from the many course offerings in your department or in other departments with the approval of your department chair.
Liberal Studies Electives
You may select an elective from the many liberal studies course offerings. Go to the Liberal Studies department page for more information.
Senior Year
fall
Senior Thesis
This seminar provides the theoretical and methodological foundation necessary for completing a senior thesis in the departments of Fine Arts, Photography, Communication Design, Interior Design and Design Management. Over the course of the semester, students will continue to conduct research and write their thesis for the Bachelor degree. The Senior Thesis course includes individual and group tutorials, peer assessments, and research and writing workshops. This course is intended to guide students through the final stages of the thesis (from finalizing the written submission to preparing the oral defence) and it seeks to make the thesis process and oral defence as painless (and, ideally, as enjoyable) as possible.
Senior Concentration I
Senior Concentration is the synthesis of studio practice and theory. Senior year students will work independently to produce a conceptually coherent body of work expressing their individual artistic identity. Tutorials, guest lecturers and group critiques offer guidance and support as students focus on their chosen media, modes of expression, and research interests. The coursework culminates in a student presentation, final exhibition and assessment by a guest jury, during which students must consider issues of self-editing, display, and public presentation.
Prerequisites: Junior Core Studios
Senior Studio Concepts
The Senior Studio Concepts course challenges and encourages the students to consolidate their ideas and personal working processes. The course will help students to negotiate the development of an independent studio practice, respecting their chosen focus and with emphasis on advanced research methodologies.
A course designed to support each student within their artistic practice and projects, through regular individual and group tutorials. A studio course based on research, process, the actual making and contextualization of their work within a given reality, space, or “white cube” situation. A course, encouraging new ways of making, revealing experimentation, developing ideas until the students feel confident to engage with professional realities.
Workshops, gallery visits, relevant museum exhibitions will help students to situate their own practice within the contemporary art context.
Prerequisites: Junior Core Studios
Studio Elective
You may select an elective from the many course offerings in your department or in other departments with the approval of your department chair.
Liberal Studies Elective
You may select an elective from the many liberal studies course offerings. Go to the Liberal Studies department page for more information.
spring
Senior Portfolio Development
The Portfolio Development class focuses on student’s research skills based upon the first semester written thesis paper to be combined with their final degree project. Its purpose is to improve each student’s capacity to express the relationship between their visual/text-based research and studio practice. Working on their personal identity and projects, the class will concentrate on the student’s portfolio, as well as consider issues of self-editing, display and public presentation. Areas covered will include portfolio content, presentation ideas and practical solutions, self-branding, biography, artist statements, business cards and portfolio leave-behind cards. It also includes preparation for graduate degree applications, grants, residencies and specific professional competitions.
This course seeks to provide in-depth information and hands-on practice in developing the visual, textual, and oral aspects of portfolio presentation. We will look at content, selection and presentation of artwork. Students will learn the basics of writing methodologies for artist statements, project proposals, curriculum vitae building, grant applications, and more. Students will be taught to conduct effective research on potential opportunities, and learn the importance of tailoring their presentation to meet the specific requirements of each endeavor. Weekly mandatory homework assignments will offer ample practice and necessary feedback for progress, fine-tuning, and perfection of the students’ presentation skills.
We will examine how to navigate databases, websites and/or publications in order to locate opportunities consistent with the student’s art form, objectives and career goals: exhibition calls (solo, group, juried), calls for projects, artist and educative residencies, as well as other professional opportunities in France, Europe, and abroad. The “dos and don’ts” of the trade will be addressed, including how to avoid pitfalls and scams. Portfolio presentation and promotion of one’s artwork will be examined, spanning from a virtual (digital) perspective (websites, social media, registries) to face-to-face meetings with galleries, exhibition spaces, curators, and collectors. The fundamentals of print solutions will be invoked.
Senior Concentration II
Senior Concentration is the synthesis of studio practice and theory. Senior year students will work independently to produce a conceptually coherent body of work expressing their individual artistic identity. Tutorials, guest lecturers and group critiques offer guidance and support as students focus on their chosen media, modes of expression, and research interests. The coursework culminates in a student presentation, final exhibition and assessment by a guest jury, during which students must consider issues of self-editing, display, and public presentation.
Prerequisites: Junior Core Studios.
Senior Studio Concepts II
The Senior Studio Concepts course challenges and encourages the students to consolidate their ideas and personal working processes. The course will help students to negotiate the development of an independent studio practice, respecting their chosen focus and with emphasis on advanced research methodologies.
A course designed to support each student within their artistic practice and projects, through regular individual and group tutorials. A studio course based on research, process, the actual making and contextualization of their work within a given reality, space, or “white cube” situation. A course, encouraging new ways of making, revealing experimentation, developing ideas until the students feel confident to engage with professional realities.
Workshops, gallery visits, relevant museum exhibitions will help students to situate their own practice within the contemporary art context.
Prerequisites: Junior Core Studios/Senior Studio Concepts 1
Liberal Studies Elective
You may select an elective from the many liberal studies course offerings. Go to the Liberal Studies department page for more information.
At the completion of their sophomore year, students can apply for transfer to Anna Maria College’s BA in Art Therapy, through a special articulation agreement between the two institutions.
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BFA student Samuel Holzberg is sharing his internship experience in the field of Fine Arts and giving advice on how to get started on finding one.More
BFA Fine Arts Class of ’17 Alumna Larissa Fantini Introduces her First Solo Show at Círculo Galeria e Arte
BFA Fine Arts Class of ’17 Alumna Larissa Fantini is exhibiting "Super Bonder," her first solo show at Círculo Galeria e Arte, in Brazil.More
BFA Fine Arts Class of ’17 Alumna Christine Forni Exhibited at Evanston Art Center
BFA Fine Arts class of ’17 alumna Christine Forni's artwork has been chosen to be part of the 2021 Evanston + Vicinity Biennial, one of the Midwest's largest and most prestigious juried exhibitions.More
Fine Arts Class of '20 Alumna Ioi Choi Featured on POPOUT zine
Fine Arts class of '20 Alumna Ioi Choi and current BFA Photography student Aris Theotokatos featured on POPOUT zine for their "Noble Reveal" project.More
Wildlife Artist of the Year 2021 Competition
Enter Wildlife Artist of the Year 2021 organized by David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation to get a chance to win a great prize and help a noble cause.More
The Liberal Studies Department hosts a talk with Artist Christian Jendreiko
Join The Liberal Studies Department for a talk with Artist Christian Jendreiko on December 1 to discuss his work!More
Interview with Artist Susan Bee
Following her successful PCA talk in the fall of 2019, New-York based artist Susan Bee was interviewed by Barbara Montefalcone, Chair of Liberal Studies.More
What’s Your Work Worth?
Boss Blog brings you tips on how much to charge for your work.More
Foundation Department Presents: "1910-2010: From Pierneef to Gugulective" by Riason Naidoo
The Foundation Department is hosting the lecture "1910-2010: From Pierneef to Gugulective" by Riason Naidoo, an exhibition curator, writer and artist from South Africa on Friday 13th November.More
Websites to Start Your Internship Search
Boss blog gives you tips on the best websites to visit to start your internship search.More
PCA Virtual Open House
Register online to get access to PCA virtual Open House!More
Finding a Job During Recession/Pandemic
Boss blog will give you some tips to help you navigate the job search during a pandemic or economic recession.More
Lisa Salamandra to give Artist Talk
Lisa Salamandra will be giving an artist talk about her work and her creative process.More
Archie Chekatouski Presents His First Book, Words
Archie Chekatouski, BFA Fine Art class of 2019, presented his first book at a meet-and-greet and book signing on October 6th.More
BFA Fine Arts Student Works Featured on the Streets of Paris
Last Fall 2019, PCA teamed up with Chelsfield real estate company for a hoarding competition. BFA Fine Arts students Kathy Huang and Rachel Fallon's works were selected to be displayed on rue Marbeuf in Paris, France.More
Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction - Graduate Symposium
Paris College of Art graduate students are proud to host an academic symposium on Wednesday, April 29, 2020, at 10 am Paris CET.More
Sign-up for BFA Fine Arts Alumna Annelies Schubert's Linoprinting Workshop
BFA Fine Arts class of '19 Annelies Schubert will be hosting a lino-printing workshop with fellow artist Juls in Paris on March 08, 2020.More
Mois du Dessin 2020 at PCA - BFA Fine Arts Workshop and PCA Talk
As part of Mois du Dessin, from 25-26 March, 2020, PCA will host: a BFA Fine Arts workshop, a PCA Talk with guests Emilie McDermott and Nour Awada, and an opening reception hosted by L’Air Arts, Artists-in-Residence Program.More
Faculty Daniel Clarke in Group Exhibition at Galerie Françoise Besson
The group exhibition "Le Souffle" runs from January 30 - March 28, 2020.More
FRAC Normandie Presents: Diogo Pimentão
FRAC Normandy is holding major exhibition of PCA's faculty member, Portugese-born artist Diogo Pimentão.More
BFA Fine Arts Class of '20 Kenza Hamoumi Featured in Moroccan Press
BFA Fine Arts class of '20 Kenza Hamoumi was interviewed and featured in several newspapers and magazines including: Femmes du Maroc, La vie éco, and Aujourd’hui le Maroc.More
Adjunct faculty Lisa Salamandra at Impact Chili 2020
Adjunct faculty Lisa Salamandra's work will be part of the exhibition curated by Carlos Araya Carlanga. Impact Chili 2020 is a one-day, all day event held at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris on February 01, 2020.More
Adjunct Faculty Presents: Anthologie du Pain Quotidien
BFA Fine Arts and Masters in Design for Social Impact faculty Lisa Salamandra will be showing her series "Daily Bread" at the Galerie de la Tour Morillon in Saint-Amand-Montrond.More
Fine Arts Faculty Thu Van Tran Exhibits at Almine Rech Gallery
Fine Arts faculty member Thu Van Tran is holding her first solo show at the Almine Rech Gallery, titled 'Trail Dust.'More
Class of '15 Garret Nasset Releases Album
Fine Arts alumni Garret Nasset releases "For Someone I Once Knew". Have a listen!More
Fine Arts Faculty Juliette Vivier to Exhibit with Association Florence
Fine Arts faculty Juliette Vivier to exhibit with the Association Florence. Join us for the openings on: Thursday November 21, 7-9pm & Saturday 23 November, 2019, 3-10pm.More