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.
As a student at PCA in this program, you gain a strong foundation in the artistic tradition via both established and new media, thus enriching your capacity for communication and expression. The curriculum balances a full investigation of traditional media: drawing, painting and sculpture, with extensive explorations in video, installation, performance, photography and digital imaging. Your junior year allows you to choose a 2D, 3D or 4D orientation. Elective courses in other departments offer new and different methods and processes. Interdisciplinary practice provokes students to pursue and develop individual artistic modes of inquiry.
Application of theory and criticism shapes your 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 you to an informed exploration within both historical and contemporary art practices. Museum and gallery visits are an integral aspect of the curriculum and create a boundless fine arts learning experience.
Faculty
Curriculum
Foundation
fall
Ways of Seeing: Drawing or Photography
In the fall semester, In-person Foundation students choose between Drawing I and Black & White Photography, and in the Spring semester, between Drawing II & Color Photography. Students in Pathways to Paris take two semesters of Drawing.
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 aims to develop skills in perception, comprehension, and appreciation of various visual art forms. It fosters the ability to closely analyze visual materials and explore the range of questions and methods used to examine and interpret artworks. Moreover, the course emphasizes understanding art as a visual language and encourages students to express their understanding verbally, both orally and in writing. The course is structured around four thematic modules that correspond to specific geographical locations and major art historical periods. These modules do not provide comprehensive surveys of the art of each culture or era. Instead, they concentrate on specific themes and objects to enhance our understanding and appreciation of visual art forms.
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
Ways of Seeing: Drawing or Photography
In the fall semester, In-person Foundation students choose between Drawing I and Black & White Photography, and in the Spring semester, between Drawing II & Color Photography. Students in Pathways to Paris take two semesters of Drawing.
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. The Chair of Foundationwill advise students individually according to their interests.
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
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 — 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.
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.
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 Electives
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.
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.
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 Electives
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
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.
Performance
What is performance art? Exploring the body and live media in art. What is the meaning of the term “performance” today? For many artists, its attitude is an integral part of their working process, with a range of expressive means: from painting to installation, video to text. This course will investigate ideas related to performance in the context of art. Together, we will experiment and delimit thinking around ‘performativity’, technology, and subjectivity via presentations, games, exercises, and visits to live events. The aim of this course is to explore and understand how the body (human and non-human) can be used as a tool for investigation, improvisation, and documentation. Students on the course are active in their learning. You will be introduced to key subjects and issues with examples of performances, followed by practical workshops where you will work together to develop and experiment through themes of music, movement, language, technology, liveness, and collectiveness. You will then be invited to test your own ideas with practical and conceptual support from the group. You will develop critical, creative, and producing skills in order to challenge what performance can be, what it can do in the world, and how it might connect ideas, practices, and communities.
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 Electives
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 Studio Exploration
This first semester will engage in the development of individual and collective projects structured around a series of lectures/critics/discussions. The aim is to help students develop studio practices that stem from a process of research and development. The structure of the semester will create a supportive space for continuous exchange of views; encouraging students to develop skills and methods for articulating ideas in speech and work presentation. Various practical exercises on distinct thematics will punctuate the course for students to experiment with new mediums and thought processes. The seminar format and subject will change every two to three weeks including some reading suggestions, exhibition visits, and group critiques of student works to encourage a sense of community and sharing of experiences.
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 Electives
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.
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 Studio Realization
Studio Realization will continue to create a supportive space for the exchange of views and ideas and will be dedicated towards practical working sessions for the end of the year degree projects. Individual tutorials and group critiques will help support your research and project development for the final juried exhibition. Through regular discussions, students will have to prepare how to present and promote work individually and collectively for the audience? How to build a strategy for an eventual presentation of the work in an exhibition? Students will be informed about the main actors of the development of their careers illustrated by selected examples of curators, artists, institutions, and private foundations.
Prerequisites: Junior Core Studios.
Senior Degree Project
The Senior Degree Project course challenges and encourages students to consolidate their ideas and personal working processes. The course will help students to negotiate the development of independent studio practice, respecting their chosen focus and with emphasis on advanced research methodologies. In the spring semester, the students will be encouraged to develop their personal practice and research to build a body of work for the final senior degree exhibition. The course is studio-based and relies on the actual research and the making, as well as the desired final presentation, or curatorial concerns. Projects “in situ”/”site-specific”, conceptual or non-material, abstract or concrete, performance, installation, multimedia…the student will be encouraged to explore any media within their artistic practice and choices and develop their ideas until they feel confident to engage with the work and public presentation.
Prerequisites: Junior Core Studios/Senior Studio Concepts
Studio Electives
You may select an elective from the many course offerings in your department or in other departments with the approval of your department chair.
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Threads of Life by Etryscan Avygnon
Paris College of Art is honored to present Etryscan Avygnon’s Senior Degree Show Opening on Tuesday, December 5th at 6 pm at the Fénelon Espace15.More
Round table : Uses of Artificial Intelligence in the PCA Classroom.
Tara Bogart (Photography), Lea Collet (Fine Arts), Gaby David (Drawing), and Carlos Franklin (Transdisciplinary New Media) will share how they’ve used AI in their classes.More
Faculty Lisa Salamandra's work featured in the biennal of contemporary art "Sculptura"
The 6th edition of the contemporary art biennal "Sculptura" features the work of fourteen artists and takes place in Valence, FranceMore
Faculty Lisa Salamandra's work featured in the exhibition "Art Actuel"
Lisa Salamandra exhibits three monumental collage works from her series “CUT-OUTS”More
A GROUP SHOW Featuring PCA alumna Christine Forni '17 BFA in Fine Arts
Christine Forni, who graduated from PCA in 2017 BFA in Fine Arts, is part of a group show featuring Abraham Cone, Hai-Wen Lin, Katie Vota and Jake Fagundo. Mu Gallery 1541 W. Chicago Ave Chicago, IL 60642More
SHORT & SWEET WITH SAM
Have you talked to Sam Holzberg, '22 in BFA Fine Arts? Sometimes a man of few words and sometimes many but always interesting. Holzberg calls Paris home, thank goodness for us. We asked Holzberg what he has found most valuable about studying...More
Degree Exhibition at Bastille Design Center
Join us for Liminal the final degree exhibition of the Paris College of Art graduating class of 2022. Featuring the works of students completing their MAs & MFAs in Drawing, Photography and Image-making, Transdisciplinary New Media, and BFAs in Fine Arts and Photography.More
Drawing Event: PCA Fine Art & Plymouth College of Art Drawing Sessions
Life Drawing Sessions in the Studio & Online Between : Paris College of Art & Plymouth College of Art Room 101 Curator : Jan-Philipp Fruehsorge In Paris : MA & MFA drawing students Guest artist - Hélène Fromen for Modèle Vivant.e Model...More
PCA Faculty, Klaus Speidel, Invites PCA Community to FIGURES DE PENSÉE : FINISSAGE ET PERFORMANCE
The finissage of the exhibition Figures de pensée, please participate in the co-production of philosophical deviations based on texts by Ludwig Wittgenstein with Klaus Speidel and Nikolaus Gansterer.More
Francisco Mantecón Competition opens the call for its 15th edition
The International Biennial Poster Design Terras Gauda - Francisco Mantecón Competition opens the call for its 15th edition. Graphic artists, design studios, associations and universities around the world are invited to take part in the most prestigious graphic design competition sponsored by a...More
PCA Fine Arts Department Chair, Véronique Devoldère, Takes Drawing Research Residency in L’Air Arts
PCA’s Fine Arts department chair, Véronique Devoldère, takes part of Past Memories/ New Narratives Drawing Research Residency in L’Air Arts. L'AiR Arts invites you for the last opportunity to visit Atelier 11 - the only preserved workshop of the historical artists community of Cité Falguière...More
PCA MTNM Lunch Talk with La Fabrique des Communs Pédagogiques
Benjamin Gentils, education and innovation expert and the founder of the “Fabrique des Communs pédagogiques,” and Antoine Henry, associate professor at the University of Lille, and the scientific coordinator of the FabPeda will share their experience of the practice of commoning as...More
Class of 2021 Exhibition Catalogue
Exhibition Catalogue is a collection of PCA student work of graduating masters and undergraduate students of 2021More
"Lassitude des solitudes", group exhibition at the Abbey of Massay
Fine Arts faculty Lisa Salamandra exhibits at the Abbey of MassayMore
Navigating the Unknown: Class of 2021 Final Exhibition
Join us for Navigating the Unknown on May 12 - 13 at the Bastille Design CenterMore
Digital Fabrication *Design* | A Workshop with Faculty Joe Johnson
If you couldn't attend the About *Design* Digital Fabrication workshop held by Joe Johnson on campus, we're giving you a chance to discover what happened.More
Faculty Laurent Pernot Featured on SELECTIONS
Faculty Laurent Pernot's work was featured on SELECTIONS, a platform for the arts focusing on the Arab World.More
Re – pair project: a Series of Workshops with Chair of Fine Arts Véronique Devoldère
As part of Re – pair, a project initiated by Master in Drawing students for the Printemps du Dessin 2021, Chair of Fine Arts Véronique Devoldère will be hosting a series of workshops at Les Chambres, in Aubervilliers.More
Re – pair: a Collaborative Artwork Project for the Printemps du Dessin 2021
Submit your "discarded" sketches to contribute to Re – pair, a collaborative artwork project initiated by Master of Fine Arts in Drawing students for the Printemps du Dessin 2021.More
Finding a Fine Arts Internship: Interview with BFA Student Samuel Holzberg
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