Studio Art Minor

Upon successful completion of all requirements, the student will have knowledge of:

• A broad, applied knowledge of fundamental strategies, and methods of contemporary art-making.
• A facility with a specific set of tools and/or techniques of artistic or design production.
• How to deepen their creative intellect and artistic problem-solving skills.
• How to acquire professional experience to equip them for professional practice and/or advanced study in their field.
• How to acquire critical discursive skills, for presenting their work, explaining their concepts and critically engaging the work of others.
• How to acquire analytical skills to enable them to access (latent and manifest) meanings in visual images. They will develop a visual literacy.
• How to acquire a solid understanding of the roles of art and visual culture in a particular historical period and/or world culture.

Studio art labs are spacious, well equipped and students receive onsite guidance from professional staff technicians. Specialized studios support all major conventional, digital, and experimental processes in art and design. Highlights include: a biological arts laboratory, an electronics art lab, galleries for exhibition and experimentation, digital and multimedia labs, digital and analog photography labs, extensive printmaking labs, an audio lab, a large sculpture facility, including a laser cutter and CNC router, and one of the largest university foundries in the Eastern United States.

The highly ranked Department of Art faculty and staff consist of professionally and internationally active artists, scholars and technicians who make available a diverse range of discourse and expertise. A partial list of the fellowships secured by our faculty suggests its strength: Rockefeller Foundation, Warhol Foundation, Terra Foundation, Smithsonian, Fulbright Fellowship, the National Endowment for the Arts, Creative Capital Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, the Corporation of Yaddo, Chalmers Arts Fellowship, Aperture Foundation, Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council for the Arts, National Science Foundation and TED. Teaching staff in the Department of Art include approximately 21 teaching assistants and 10 adjunct instructors annually.

UB Art alumni can qualify for a range of professions that include art galleries, museums, alternative spaces, and auction houses where alumni work as directors, curators, preparators, installers, and art handlers.

Art Department alumni include independent artists who exhibit nationally and internationally, execute commissions, and receive national and international awards. Other alumni are assistants, collaborators, and project coordinators to world-class artists. Our students have become professors and lecturers at leading colleges and universities, and teachers at community colleges, secondary schools, and arts-in-education programs throughout North America. They are art therapists in health care professions, schools, community centers, and correctional facilities. They are also employed as graphic and web designers. Art alumni publish fine art editions, run galleries, printing firms, custom framing businesses, and casting foundries.