The Department of Mixed Media offers courses in a wide range of disciplines. Coursework is addressed to students seeking to expand art processes and techniques to engage in the experimentation of various artistic modes, expressions, and media.
3 semester credits. In this course, students will be introduced to foundational mixed media techniques; they will learn about common materials and how each media within the piece works and interacts with the others. Students will learn how to create a collage based on canvas, add texture with gesso, use stencils and stamps. In addition, students will have the opportunity to experiment with different types of acrylic paints, understand how they work and how they react when water is added. Students will learn which materials work well together and develop confidence in using the acquired knowledge when creating pieces in the future. Even the most inexperienced beginner will develop a new appreciation for the art form and will be encouraged to develop his or her own artistic style.
3 semester credits. Complex contemporary installations are mostly mixed media works. The course aims at instructing how to produce mixed media works which are an assemblage of different artistic languages such as video, photography, sound, sculpture, performance, painting, etc. The course will provide an introduction to the history of mixed media to understand how the discipline does not only revolve around artworks and materials, but how it also involves ideas, how they develop over time, and how the new concepts result from past experiences. Topics will discuss how productions are embedded into history and how artists react to events of historic significance. During the course, there will be a high concentration on student work to promote a strategy that develops manifold and viable expressions. Prerequisites: Studio, fine arts, and visual arts majors.
3 semester credits. This course focuses on performance art, with particular emphasis on the role and use of one’s mind and body during performance. Students will learn about the history of the discipline and pioneers in the field. They will also be encouraged to engage in, produce, and critique their own performances. This course thus relies on an approach which merges theory and practice to generate awareness, mindfulness, and creativity. The mind and body are framed as interlinking components, which are to be comprehended and directed in order to create art. Students will gain knowledge about the roles that factors such as time, space, place, nature, and audience have on performances, and will ultimately work on the creation of an extended final performance, to be presented at the end of the course.