Studio Arts

Studio art is a degree for developing the best practices of contemporary artists and designers. Students in the three media concentrations join for a two-semester interdisciplinary studio to develop group projects and a body of work and a senior seminar on professional practices for artists such as creating presentation materials and writing grants and artist’s statements. Students in graphic design take a senior seminar on professional practices and develop a portfolio to show prospective employers and clients. Studio art majors select one of the following concentrations in which to develop their skills, push their conceptual abilities and expand their creativity.  

• Graphic Design: Visual communication through typography and images.
• 2D Media: Drawing, painting and printmaking.
• 3D Media: Sculpture and ceramics using classic and experimental technologies.
• Integrated Media: Art created through new and emerging technologies.

Program Requirements Department of Art Art Scholarships

Program Highlights

• Kiehle Visual Arts Center houses ceramics, wet-based photography and printmaking; large studio classrooms for painting, drawing, sculpture, and art education; student studios; a woodshop; a metal shop; and several large computer labs and a digital project lab that support graphic design, digital photography, video, and multimedia.
• Faculty are established artists as well as teachers with work exhibited and selected for collections across the country including the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Walker Art Center, Museum of Arts and Design in New York, Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago and Cain Schulte Gallery in San Francisco.
• Visiting Artists, Designers, and Curators Program, annually invites three or four national arts professionals such as Nicholas Brown, a curator from Yale; Michelle Grabner, Chicago artist and co-curator of the 2014 Whitney Biennial; and Mark Randall, New York graphic designer to lead workshops and meet with students one-on-one to discuss their work.
• Student-run Gallery Vault in downtown St. Cloud provides exhibit space for student artists and develops art-centered events that connect the university and the St. Cloud community.

Program Distinctions

• Kiehle Gallery exhibits the work of innovative regional artists and designers who discuss their work during openings and hosts the annual juried student art show, curated by a Twin-Cities arts professional.
• 1 of 7 colleges, schools, and universities in Minnesota accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design.
• Faculty includes two Fulbright fellows, five McKnight fellows, three Bush fellows, and one Joan Mitchell Foundation fellow.
• Notable alumni: TyRuben Ellingson '81 '82 is a conceptual designer who has worked with film directors such as James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, Guillermo Del Toro and the late Stanley Kubrick. Valerie Snobeck '03, named by arts writer Elisa Carmichael as one of 25 artists to watch in 2013, exhibited as part of Whitney Biennial, a show of new American art at Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. 

University Facts & Stats

• 92% of studio arts graduates employed

• $106 million in scholarships loans and grants

• 90+ nations represented on campus

• 39 Education Abroad programs offered

• Among Forbes' "America's Top Colleges"