Courses

In this art-related work experience, students are invited into embodied and experiential inquiry. Students immerse themselves into a hands-on investigation of professional practices while being mentored by practicing artists and other art professionals in areas of creative and critical expertise. This participatory experience may include guidance from artists, art historians, art institutions, designers, art therapists, and others.

In this art-related work experience, students are invited into embodied and experiential inquiry. Students immerse themselves into a hands-on investigation of professional practices while being mentored by practicing artists and other art professionals in areas of creative and critical expertise. This participatory experience may include guidance from artists, art historians, art institutions, designers, art therapists, and others.

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.

This course provides an in-depth look at the integration of theory and practice surrounding historical and contemporary abstract painting. Art elements and principles, particularly colour, are used with increasing specificity and intentionality. Students investigate how aesthetic choices realized on a canvas reveal the artist's position within art, culture, and political history.

This course traces the diverse artistic movements that developed in urban centres throughout Europe from The Great Exhibition of 1851 in London to the Dada movement in Zurich in the 1920s. Students consider the changing role of the artist and the way in which both the subject matter and the stylistic treatment of their art are shaped by and are a response to this modern world.

This course explores how art strategies (in traditional mediums such as painting, sculpture, and architecture, as well as film, video, performance) and the critical debates that arose in Europe and North America in the aftermath of the First World War to the present day, reflect the social, economic, and political context charting the rise and fall of modernism and the transition to postmodern practices within the visual arts. The role of art in society, its relationship to mass culture, and what is at stake in maintaining socially engaged art today are considered.

Cultivating an informed engagement with our predominantly visual culture, this course combines photographic technical skill (composition, lighting, darkroom procedures, etc.) with informed cultural photographic theory relating to aesthetic, ethical, and theological issues. Participants are encouraged to embody a re-visioning as photographers and thinkers who embrace a Christian view of the world and its inhabitants.

A critical evaluation of the deployment of visual art in video games. Student will develop a broad appreciation for the incredible variety of video game art and consider the spiritual, moral and ethical issues surrounding visual design choices in game development. Student will engage theories and tools that will enhance student participation in development projects.

A continuation of the foundational animation courses. Students will research animation techniques and aesthetics and then develop a plan in consultation with the instructor for a semester-long project.  Students will build on their existing animation skills and aesthetic judgement as well as gain a wider appreciation for what is possible with animation, whether computerized or otherwise.