Application Deadline for fall 2014 admission: January 15, 2014
University of California, Davis
Art & Art History Department
1 Shields Avenue
Davis, CA 95616-8528
T +1 530 752 0105
The Master of Fine Arts degree in Art Studio at UC Davis offers a unique opportunity for study across a wide range of visual arts. The focus is to hone artistic and perceptive abilities, build technical skills, and foster intellectual development for individual students in their pursuit of careers as practicing artists. Students are strongly encouraged to explore whatever medium best serves their expressive needs. The Art Department has facilities for drawing, ceramic/clay sculpture, painting, photography, printmaking, video, and sculpture (we do not have a foundry). Graduate students are also given large, individual studios on campus, which are located near the main art building with 24/7 access.
In keeping with the mission of the University of California, tuition is very accessible and out-of-state students receive support to offset their expenses. Art Studio helps to financially support the education of its graduate students through generous Art Studio Fellowships and competitive awards endowed by Mary Lou Osborn, Robert Arneson, Fay Nelson, Freemon Gadberry, and The Nelson Artfriends. Students may also apply for university support through Graduate Studies Travel Awards, Davis Humanities Fellowships, and Consortium for Women and Research Awards. UC Davis participates in The Headlands Graduate Fellow Award program that supports year-long artist’s residencies for recent M.F.A. graduates at the Headlands Center for the Arts. Some of our recent students have won nationally competitive graduate fellowships from The Dedalus Foundation and The Joan Mitchell Foundation. Graduate students also have the opportunity to work with the faculty as teaching assistants and as instructor of record as Associate Instructors. These positions come with pay and full tuition support.
The entire Art Studio faculty shares responsibility for the graduate program and teaches both graduate and undergraduate courses. The faculty represents a diversity of approaches across all disciplines. The faculty is available to all graduate students for one-on-one studio visits throughout the year and participate in all formal reviews.
Faculty include Tom Bills, Robin Hill, Darrin Martin, Hearne Pardee, Lucy Puls, Annabeth Rosen, Youngsuk Suh, and Gina Werfel.
MFA students in the Art Department are linked with the Art History, Cinema and Technocultural Studies, Music, and Performing Studies programs on campus. Visiting artists to all of these programs and to the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts on campus are an integrated and essential part of study. The university is an unparalleled resource in all disciplines of research to broaden and deepen the work of an artist. The Art Studio MFA program also includes a lively Visiting Lecture Series, which includes presentations and graduate critiques with artists. Among the past lecturers are Phong Bui, Joan Jonas, Gregory Amenoff, Mary Lucier, Robert Storr, Vito Acconci, Ken Johnson, Jed Perl, Fred Tomaselli, Kalup Linzy, Terry Winters, Larry Rinder, Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, Rochelle Feinstein, Dana Schutz, Ryan Trecartin, and Shana Moulton.
UC Davis is located about an hour’s drive from Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco; a six-hour drive from Los Angeles; a two-hour drive from the ocean and equidistant from Lake Tahoe. Davis is situated on the floor of the Sacramento Valley, hot and dry in the summer and cool and rainy in the winter and is surrounded by fruit and nut tree orchards. Napa and Sonoma are close at hand.