painting on easel

Visual Arts (BA)

The BA in Visual Arts at Montclair State University provides an innovative curriculum to ensure students develop their hand, as well as the technical skills and conceptual schema necessary for a range of careers in the creative fields. Foundation courses stress the aesthetic and practical concepts at the heart of good design across different media, introducing courses that range from charcoal drawing to working within the Adobe suite. Students gain the basic preparation for the challenges posed in the Integrative Studios advanced courses, where analog and digital skills merge for students to produce portfolios with works in 2D, 3D, and 4D media.

The BA is especially recommended for students wishing to continue their visual arts education at the graduate level.

What You Will Study

The curriculum is designed for students to develop a variety of creative and technical skills that will serve them professionally. Collaboration across projects and learning in classrooms with students in all the program areas of the Department of Art and Design ensures the cross-critical thinking that is prevalent in today’s creative and design fields.

Visual Arts (BA) | CurriculumDownload the 4-Year Plan for Visual Arts

Our Faculty

You will study with our outstanding faculty and interact with world-renowned visiting artists and designers, who mentor our art and design students each semester.

Learn more:
Visual Arts FacultyAll Art and Design Faculty
Guest Artists:
Art and Design Forum 

About Studio Facilities

The Department of Art and Design occupies several on-campus buildings, housing fully-equipped studios for all studio areas.

For more information:

All Studio Facilities
About Student Work

Throughout their course of study, student artists create work using a variety of media and techniques, including ceramics, drawing, metalwork & jewelry, painting, photography, printmaking and sculpture. Student work is regularly exhibited on campus.

Visit our Student Work Gallery:

Student Work – All Programs
Careers and Professional Resources

Artists with degrees in Visual Arts pursue many paths to find outlets for their creativity. Those wishing to teach at the college level or advance their education in the arts go on to graduate school. Others embark immediately on careers as professional artists, opening studios where they develop work for exhibition.

Successful artists are often adventurous and entrepreneurial in spirit, supporting their art-making careers with parallel work. Artists often work as teachers in community programs or as administrators in galleries, museums, arts organizations or schools.  Others work as studio assistants or apprentices to established professional artists. Some pursue art history degrees and become critics, curators, art publishers or historians. Studio artists are often commissioned — or receive grant support — for special projects including portraiture, illustration work, public sculpture, billboard art or mural installations. Others find work as art framers, space designers or in the fields of decorative and crafts arts.

Please visit the links below for additional information:

Professional Development – Resources and Links
Career Services

Accreditation

Montclair State University’s art and design programs are among the region’s most competitive, and meet the rigorous standards of the National Association of Schools of Art & Design (NASAD).

Apply NowRequest Information

Contact Head of Visual Arts: Sandra Lee
Location:
216 Calcia Hall