B.F.A. Studio Practice Areas

The undergraduate program in art, leading to the degree of Bachelor of Fine Arts, provides an opportunity for the student to combine a general liberal studies education with the studio practice required for a professional degree. Art courses occupy about one half of the student's time during the four years at Cornell; the remaining time is devoted to a diversified program of academic subjects with a generous provision for electives.

Digital Media

Digital media introduces students to the wide range of digital practices, techniques, and theories that inform contemporary art and culture. Students learn through hands-on experience with software and digital equipment how to express ideas in digital imaging, video, sound, interaction design, network media, and animation. Digital techniques and methods are taught in a critical context and as a form of interdisciplinary studio practice.

Drawing

Drawing courses explore intellectual concepts and formal techniques. The foundation level focuses on building a working knowledge of the principles of representation and technical facility with various drawing media. The topical structure of courses beyond the foundation level uses drawing for the development and refinement of complex artistic expression.

Painting

Students are given experience with various techniques and processes within a topical study structure that encourages development of conceptual, formal, and aesthetic concerns within both traditional and experimental forms.

Photography

Photography encompasses lens-based and light-activated processes. Courses provide specialized instruction on topics such as narrative and collage, alternative processes, the expressive use of color, identity and visual representation, and more. Students work with both digital and film-based practices, supported by state-of-the-art computer labs and darkrooms.

Print Media

This area of instruction offers study of traditional and experimental printmaking processes to develop a critical practice grounded in the history of all printed media and their contemporary use as a social medium. Students are exposed to a comprehensive range of techniques that include intaglio, lithography, relief, screen printing, and digital printmaking and their intersections.

Sculpture

Students have opportunities to work in a wide variety of media such as plaster, wood, concrete, stone, clay, rubber, wax, plastic, and metal. Students are encouraged to pursue their individual artistic interests through work in both traditional and new genre sculptural practices including site-specific installation and projection work.