Mar 28, 2024  
2020-2021 Undergraduate Catalog 
    
2020-2021 Undergraduate Catalog

Art Practices Emphasis, Fine Arts BFA


Introduction

Please click here  to see general Visual Arts information.

The Art Practices emphasis provides students with a comprehensive education in visual art practices, which includes creative influences, ideas, materials, tools and skills, as well as theory and art history, with an emphasis on current trends in contemporary art. Art Practices is designed for students whose creative ideas move across media and who are looking for a more comprehensive critical approach to developing their art practice. Art Practices provides students with focused professional skills in two self-selected areas of studio art, whereby the student can develop a fully formed and thoughtful body of work with conceptual impact.

The emphasis is a focused degree program that provides students with greater knowledge and tools to make them competitive in the professional world of contemporary art. The work of contemporary artists is a dynamic combination of materials, methods, concepts, and subjects that challenge traditional assumptions and definitions. Contemporary artists give voice to the varied and changing landscapes of identity, values, and beliefs in the increasingly global culture of our diverse and technologically advancing world. Artists today explore ideas, concepts, questions, and practices that examine the past, describe the present, and imagine the future. This program is designed to address the needs of students looking to become successful emerging artists with the skills to become active individuals in the art world through multiple outlets through exhibitions and sales, arts education, curation, critical art writing, art therapy, fabrication, public art, entrepreneurship, art consulting, costume and set design, fashion/accessory and textile design, performance art, portraiture, various facets of business employment and much more!

Students may choose from two areas for their primary concentration: Painting and Drawing OR Transmedia Sculpture. They then select a secondary concentration–different from their primary concentration from the following: Painting and Drawing, Illustration, Transmedia Sculpture or Photography. Students take 21 semester hours in their primary concentration and 15 semester hours in their secondary concentration. 

Program Delivery

  • This is an on-campus program.

Declaring This Major

  • Click here  to go to information about declaring a major.

General Requirements

To earn a degree, students must satisfy all requirements in each of the areas below, in addition to their individual major requirements.

Program Requirements


  1. A minimum letter grade is required for each course in the major for the course to satisfy the degree requirement. All grades apply to the major and are averaged to generate the major-specific GPA.
    • A minimum grade of C (2.0) is required to satisfy degree requirements for any major course taken at CU Denver.
    • A grade of C- (1.7) or lower will not fulfill a major, minor or certificate requirement, but is calculated in the major GPA.
    • A grade of P is acceptable for courses in which the only grade available is Pass or Fail
  2. All upper-division visual arts courses must be taken at CU Denver unless approved otherwise by Department of Visual Arts faculty.
  3. At least 27 semester hours of visual arts credits (at any level) must be taken at CU Denver.
  4. At least 24 semester hours of total visual arts courses must be upper-division.

Secondary Studio Concentrations


Take all of the Secondary Studio Concentration courses from ONE of the following categories (Transmedia Sculpture or Painting and Drawing or Illustration or Photography). Note that the Secondary Concentration must be different from the Main Concentration.

 

Note: Students wishing to select Illustration as a secondary concentration area must participate in the Illustration portfolio Day. For more information, please click here.