Courses

In this interdisciplinary course, students will gain experience with a wide range of creative thinking practices with a focus on ideation techniques and creative problem solving methodologies, such as design thinking. Students will apply creative problem solving techniques to complex problems and personal interests while learning about the history, key players, and processes that have led to our contemporary understanding of creativity. Students will develop their capacity for flexible and original thinking, and will begin cultivating habits that support their ability to quickly adapt and innovate in our rapidly changing world.

This foundations level studio course invites students to explore artistic practice as a mode of inquiry and a meaning-making language. The course cultivates visual intelligence through carefully sequenced drawing exercises, illustrated lectures and readings. Perceptual, conceptual and technical skills are honed and elements of art and principles of design are explored through drawing and composition projects that give students an experiential understanding of a wide range of artmaking paradigms.

Introductory studio course that invites students into the investigation of colour and its interaction, time and space arts, and three-dimensional art. Through the immersive practice of developing of artwork, students experience art as a mode of inquiry where meaning is understood through intuitive, imaginative, creative and interpretive methodologies. Using foundational skills, students employ critical and creative thinking that reflects fluency and flexibility of imagination and expression to create art and make new connections or respond to a chosen problem, concept or question.

Through this intensive investigation into life drawing, students develop perceptual awareness, build an expressive visual vocabulary and critically examine how cultural stereotypes inscribe and politicize the body. Anatomical, aesthetic, perceptual, critical and conceptual inquiries are explored. Students examine the ways in which culture, society and theology influence imaging the body.

In this introductory photography course, students will explore the art and science of capturing images through a hands-on, experiential approach. This course includes, but is not limited to basic camera operations, lighting, image editing, digital workflow, and photo montage. Through a series of creative assignments, in-class discussions, and critical reflections, students are invited to explore the aesthetic, semiotic, and ethical aspects of photography as a way of worldmaking, and what it means to be an image maker in contemporary society.

An introductory survey inviting students, as a mode of inquiry, to explore, examine, analyze and appreciate specific historical visual images, sculptural objects, and architectural structures. It traces thematically and chronologically some of the major developments that have influenced both western and eastern cultures from prehistoric cave painting to the 15th century. Students employ historical means and methods (notably artworks as important historical documents complementing written texts) to question, in a systematic and rigorous way, and to interpret the ways in which particular works of art participate in the social, political, economic, religious and cultural climates of which they have been an integral part learning.

An introductory survey inviting students, as a mode of inquiry, to explore, examine, analyze and appreciate specific historical visual images, sculptural objects, and architectural structures. It traces thematically and chronologically some of the major developments that have influenced both western and eastern cultures from prehistoric cave painting to the 15th century. Students employ historical means and methods (notably artworks as important historical documents complementing written texts) to question, in a systematic and rigorous way, and to interpret the ways in which particular works of art participate in the social, political, economic, religious and cultural climates of which they have been an integral part.

An active exploration of graphic design essentials, creative ideation methods, and visual communication techniques. Students use creative thinking methodologies to experiment with a wide range of design approaches, evaluate the aesthetic and conceptual value of specific design solutions, and sharpen their creative, critical thinking, and perceptual skills.

Students explore inquiry-based perceptual, abstract, conceptual, and performative definitions of contemporary drawing practice. The criteria for defining, analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating drawings are widened to embrace current theoretical frameworks. Issues and themes of drawing practice after the initial decades of postmodernism are the focus of student inquiries/projects.