Image: 2020 Roski Graduate Open Studios. Photo: Capture Imaging / Ryan Miller
MFA Art Overview
The Master of Fine Arts in Art program is a two-year, full-time, studio-based program located in the center of Los Angeles. The expansive city is home to a vital local art community and international gallery and museum scene with five arts districts: Downtown, Culver City, Mid-Wilshire, Hollywood and Chinatown. With a select cohort enrolled each year, the program provides a unique experience that focuses on interdisciplinary and wide-ranging experimental, creative, and intellectual exploration.
Students work closely with USC Roski's internationally acclaimed faculty, as well as an expanded community of leading professional artists, critics, and curators who participate in the weekly Visiting Artist and Scholar Seminar and the Resident Artists and Scholars Program. USC Roski boasts four exhibition spaces and has formal affiliations with the USC Fisher Museum of Art, The Hancock Memorial Museum, The Pacific Asian Museum, and the California African American Museum.
Program Highlights
The USC Roski MFA Art is designed to maximize each student's individual studio experience, and its instructional model is focused on critical dialogue as provided by regular studio visits with faculty and guest artists and scholars, and group critiques with student peers. Students also take courses with USC Roski's renowned Critical Studies faculty that emphasize tracing intellectual and artistic histories, understanding the complexities of theories applied to the visual arts, and addressing global art practices. Program electives provide a broader platform for experimentation, and encourage students to explore the expansive possibilities for complementary fields of research at one of the world's leading research universities. This curricular depth coupled with USC Roski's intellectual and artistic reach, its position on the Pacific Rim and in one of the world's major arts capitals, and its ability to provide a vast array of cross- and interdisciplinary opportunities for its students offers an unparalleled environment for advanced study and practice.
INDIVIDUAL STUDIES
Students work with distinguished faculty and visiting artists and scholars through a series of private studio visits. Visits typically occur weekly, but may occur more or less frequently, as determined by individual student needs and faculty advisors.
GROUP CRITIQUE
Students gain insight and perspective through a weekly seminar that investigates issues relative to current directions in the visual arts. Analysis and implications of forces contributing to conceptual development is provided by student peers, as moderated by faculty.
View the MFA Art Handbook, which includes a sample course of study, here.
MFA Art Program Objectives can be found here.
For the Online Course Catalogue, click here.
For details on the USC Roski facilities, click here.