Contact Us
Katzen Arts Center , Room 101 on a map
Art 4400 Massachusetts Avenue NW Washington, DC 20016-8004 United StatesStudio Art BA
The Undergraduate Studio Art BA provides students with the tools to ambitiously engage historical and contemporary criteria for making art. Come work with our professional, dedicated, and innovative faculty in a city where you will have access to internationally renowned museums and galleries.
AU Museum with the Katzen Rotunda in the background.
The Katzen Arts Center provides students with fully equipped, state-of-the-art facilities where students can thrive in a flexible program that offers sculpture, painting, video, digital photography, drawing, printmaking, expanded media and special topics courses.
The program includes historical, theoretical, and practical approaches to fine art. Students relate technical developments in various disciplines to aesthetic and conceptual developments, citing movements and trends that also coincided with broader art history. Through a capstone project and exhibition, students delve into a relevant topic and artistic process of their choice and analyze it through a specific socio-cultural lens.
Students in the screenprinting studio.
News & Notes
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Professor Don Kimes appeared as a guest on the "I Like Your Work" podcast on the episode "Don Kimes: The Language and Power of Art."
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Professor Danielle Mysliwiec received the 2024-2025 Long Meadow Art Residency, which provides studio space and lodgings for awardees in The Berkshires.
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Professor Don Kimes was profiled by Denise Bibro Fine Art: "Don Kimes: Artist, Educator, Program Developer, Administrator, and Mentor."
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Professor Andy Holtin was the KID Museum’s visiting artist in fall 2023. He created a “Theater of Objects,” a collaborative and interactive exhibit with KID Museum apprentices that was unveiled at KID Museum Bethesda Metro Center.
- Professor Kyle Hackett’s solo exhibition Circular Narratives was at Vinegar in Birmingham, Alabama.
- Professors Ara Koh and Matthew Russo (MFA '20) were featured in the current Kreeger Museum exhibition Doing the Work presented in collaboration with Hamiltonian Artists.
- Professor David Page was a finalist for the 2023 Janet & Walter Sondheim Art Prize, an award for artists living and working in the Baltimore region.
- Analysis: Students will be able to develop and present foundational analyses of works of art from formal, historical, and cultural perspectives.
- Visual Communication: Students will be able to define and employ vocabulary specific to the field of contemporary art. Foundational vocabulary will be learned during a student’s course of study in a broad selection of two-dimensional, three-dimensional, and four-dimensional disciplines (drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture, digital photography and digital video). Vocabulary will directly relate to knowledge and skills gained through practice with materials, traditional and technology-based tools, techniques, and creative thought processes.
- Oral and Written Communication: Students will demonstrate an ability to verbally articulate artistic positions and intents, and support these statements with reference to their work and processes.
- Technical Competency in Artistic Media: Students’ works will exhibit sophisticated technical capacity and skilled use of media as appropriate to the student’s artistic intentions.
- Creative Inquiry: Students will demonstrate an ability to define and self-direct areas of artistic exploration, both through preparatory research, selection of media/processes appropriate to their interests and intentions, and the development of self-directed creative works.
- Interdisciplinary Relevance: Students will be able to relate foundational arts knowledge and skills within and across the visual arts disciplines, and to make connections with other disciplines.
- Knowledge of Contemporary and Historical Art: Students will demonstrate a foundational knowledge of the history of art, as well as an awareness of contemporary precedent within their area of focus. At the advanced level, students should be able to place their work in context of current ideas and practitioners.
