University of Kentucky School of Art and Visual Studies

COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS SCHOOL OF ART AND VISUAL STUDIES

MAKE YOUR MARK AT THE UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY.

As a School of Art and Visual Studies (SA/VS) student you’ll create and investigate in open studio spaces with advanced equipment in traditional and digital media. You’ll meet and learn from renowned artists, curators, and critics through our Visiting Artist Series. In addition to strong academic programs and supported maker spaces, we showcase an exhibition schedule of faculty, students, and guest artists’ work in the Bolivar Art Gallery. Your education will not only make you competitive in careers as a professional artist, educator, and scholar; it will also prepare you for challenges in fields outside the arts.

AREAS OF STUDY

Undergraduate Majors

Art Studio BA

Art Studio BFA

Art Education BA

Art History & Visual Studies BA Digital Media Design BS

Minors

Art Studio

Art History Photography Visual Studies Digital Media Design

Certificate in Filmmaking: Production and Dramatic Writing

Media Areas of Study

Animation Ceramics

Digital Fabrication Digital Illustration Drawing Fiber Graphic Design Intermedia & Web Design Medical Simulation Painting Performance Photography Printmedia Sculpture & Metal Arts Video & Filmmaking Virtual Reality

When you pursue a Digital Media Design degree at UK, you can shape your curriculum to suit your career goals! Students can emphasize areas like commercial photography or graphic design, or take coursework in web design and development, professional printmaking, animation or digital fabrication. Innovative capstone courses allow students to interface with their professional choices while enrolled in the degree.

Digital Media Design enables students to actively craft their career with a degree that combines fundamental production skills in video, photography, design, and programming with training to understand and analyze how culture is transformed by a myriad of rapidly evolving and hybridized media. This degree puts you in control of your future. The BS in DMD is an applied art degree designed for students interested in careers in creative industries.

“The Digital Media Design program has prepared me greatly for this position. I learned managing multiple projects, brainstorming innovative ways of interpreting information, and research methods on design from the program and those are exactly the skills I use for this job.”

DARIA SMITH ‘18 Graphic Designer

STUDIO ART, BA, BFA

A studio art degree prepares you for the creative life you plan to live and opens the door to an inventive career full of exploration, critical thinking, and a practice based in hands-on making. We expect our graduates to be visually and culturally literate and to possess skills as versatile makers and problem solvers, well-prepared for a culture driven by art, design, and continuously evolving media platforms.

If you are interested in an interdisciplinary art degree with a broad foundation in the visual and liberal arts, the Bachelor of Art Studio program may be for you. Combining aspects of contemporary studio practice, art history and other academic and research pursuits, this program of study prepares students for a variety of creative and hybrid career paths in the arts and beyond. Coursework across a range of studio disciplines culminates in a group show at the School of Art and Visual Studies’ Bolivar Art Gallery.

The BFA degree offers students an intensive studio-focused program of study with an emphasis in a selected area of specialization, including painting, fiber, photography, and new media. Students apply to the BFA in their second year and are accepted by a portfolio review. At the end of the program, each student organizes a public solo exhibition showcasing their work. This degree is a great pathway to an MFA.

Student organizations include SCRAAP, Bluegrass Printmakers, Zine Club

“I would not be where I am today without the help of my wonderful professors. I am extremely thankful that UK prepared me to become the artist I am today...I never expected to travel to melting glaciers so soon to create artwork with goals of reaching out to others and challenging ideas of climate change.”

AMY HOAGLAND ‘16 Artist, Windgate Fellow

ART HISTORY & VISUAL STUDIES, BA

Visual perception is essential to success in many careers. The ability to accurately observe the visual world and articulate its meaning are valuable skills in a broad range of fields including law, medicine, information technology, education, and museum work.

The Art History & Visual Studies program offers two distinct tracks for undergraduate majors and minors. These tracks are designed to help students prepare for the many career choices available to students pursuing a degree in one of the richest and most diverse fields in the humanities. Students in either degree option may intern at the UK Art Museum and/or the Bolivar Art Gallery in SA/VS to learn the fundamentals of exhibition creation, design and installation.

Art History Option

The Art History option provides Art History and Visual Studies majors with the knowledge to interpret visual forms as expressions of historical periods and cultural values, and with skills that lead to the pursuit of independent scholarship. These are skills useful for virtually any career path, including law and international business.

Visual Studies Option

The Visual Studies option deals with all aspects of culture that communicate through visual means, from paintings and film to advertising and Web sites. It leads to emerging careers involved with the creation, dissemination, manipulation and retrieval of images.

SOfAH, UK Student Organization for Art History

“My AHVS professors encouraged my intellectual and professional growth. They challenged me to reach for opportunities that helped me toward an informed and conscientious understanding of arts organizations, big and small, in both Kentucky and New York.”

EMMA FRIEDMAN-BUCHANAN ‘18 Gallery Director, Institute 193

ART EDUCATION, BA

K through 12 art educators are in high demand throughout Kentucky and the nation. Art education majors, if they choose, almost always immediately find teaching positions after graduation. Students in our Art Education program spend their first two years studying the fundamentals of studio art. Before graduation, they’ll participate in a group exhibition. The final two years in the program will be spent grounded in art education theory and practice, including a classroom teaching practicum and courses in educational pedagogy. With leading-edge educator skills, mastery of art studio techniques and knowledge in visual studies, our students are on track to becoming artist educators that engage and prepare students for the challenges of the 21st century.

UK’s program in Art Education prepares students in the liberal arts tradition with courses that encourage creative thinking, intellectual reasoning, and exploration of humanities, culture and global dynamics. These skills fuel a passion for helping students to achieve global competitiveness in collaboration, communication, creativity and critical thinking.

Coll.A.G.E. UK Student Organization for Art Education

“...being a part of SA/VS makes a big school feel smaller. I felt seen and heard within my major and I always felt as if my professors had my best interest in mind. Going to the University of Kentucky and being a part of the art education program was definitely one of the best decisions I have made.”

MARIE MCCLARY ‘21

CREATIVE SPACES

The School of Art and Visual Studies’ award-winning renovated building houses multiple art studios across ceramics, wood shop, sculpture, drawing, painting, fiber, 3D digital fabrication labs, and more.

FACULTY

SA/VS has the largest number of faculty in the Commonwealth, comprised of internationally recognized artists, designers, art educators, and art historians. Classes are typically small in size. Students work closely with full-time professors, trained in many different disciplines and media, within an environment that fosters undergraduate creative and academic research. SA/VS faculty also lead study abroad programs every summer as well as oversee an active student internships and jobs program.

SCHOLARSHIPS AND FINANCIAL AID

SA/VS offers scholarships to incoming freshmen majors that can extend over a four-year period. Additional scholarship money is awarded to prize winners at the annual Foundations and Carey Ellis Exhibitions. Students who plan to study art studio, digital media design or art education will be invited to submit a portfolio of their work to be considered for a scholarship. Incoming students may also be eligible for academic scholarships, including awards for alumni of Kentucky Governor’s School for the Arts or Governor’s Scholars programs.

Visit finearts.uky.edu/savs/undergraduate-scholarships-financial-aid

ADMISSIONS

Undergraduate applicants must apply through the University of Kentucky Office of Undergraduate Admissions at admission.uky.edu.

Students seeking admission to the Digital Media Design BS must apply to UK and submit an additional application to the Digital Media Design program.

https://ukart.submittable.com/submit/111357/digital-media-designdegree-entrance-application-incoming-freshmen