Studio Art practice is a key component of Wellesley College's liberal arts educational mission. The ability to understand the ways that visual information and physical space are constructed and presented, now and historically, is vital in today's world. The Studio Art Program provides students with a unique set of skills that will allow them to question, navigate, and shape the complex visual and physical environments around them. Students learn how to relate their studio research to other areas of study and how to draw unexpected connections among many different images, ideas, materials, and historical contexts. The Studio Art Program is committed to inclusive excellence and diversity in our curriculum as well as across our faculty, staff, and students.
Within the Department of Art, students may choose to major in Studio Art or Art History, or construct a double major combining these complementary fields. Students may also apply Studio Art courses towards a major in one of our interdepartmental programs of study: Architecture, Cinema & Media Studies, or Media Arts & Sciences.
Those majoring or minoring in the Studio Art Program develop:
- Enhanced visual literacy and creative responsiveness
- A more critical awareness of visual culture
- A sophisticated understanding of art, its history, and the cultural conditions that shape an artist's decisions
- An understanding of the breadth and context of contemporary art in its global practices
- A well-considered, original body of studio work for exhibition and advanced study