Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art

The interdisciplinary approach of the Master of Fine Arts at Maine College of Art (MECA) asks students to think across traditional academic boundaries, expand their art practice, and challenge their intellectual curiosity. Whether a student chooses the full or low-residency option, this highly individualized program begins with the Summer Intensive, an 8-week immersive experience featuring a distinguished roster of visiting artists, curators, cultural producers and/or activists in addition to renowned core faculty. Studio-based, the curriculum provides a transformative learning experience for students as they define a sustainable vision for their own art practice through individual research, critical analysis and curatorial experimentation, along with a high degree of faculty contact time and structured travel to important cultural sites. 

Projected visiting artist and faculty highlights for summer 2018: 

Kris Grey, Visiting Artist
Kris Grey/Justin Credible (New York, NY) is a gender-queer artist whose work combines strategies of communication, activism, community building, education, lecture and studio production in two-dimensional, three-dimensional and time-based mediums. Their work also includes curatorial projects, performance and writing, and they perform, teach and exhibit work internationally. Grey was a 2012 Fire Island Artist Residency recipient, the resident artist for the ANTI Festival for Contemporary Art in Kupoio, Finland, and a teaching artist in 2013 at The International Centre for Training in the Performing Arts in Brussels, Belgium; currently, Grey is an artist-in-residence at MOCA Tucson. In addition to their individual practice, Grey collaborates with Maya Ciarrocchi under the moniker Gender/Power, which has been awarded a Baryshnikov Art Center residency, a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council residency, a Franklin Furnace grant and a MAP Fund Grant.

Julie Poitras Santos, Faculty
Julie Poitras Santos (Portland, ME) has a site-specific creative practice comprised of video, installation, performance, writing and public projects. Also a poet, she embraces intersections of language and art. Julie’s most recent work uses walking as a means to create community, investigate richly sited ways of knowing, and narrate new territories. Recent awards include a 2016 Kindling Fund Grant from the Warhol Regional Regranting Program and SPACE Gallery in Portland, ME; a Brunakra Residency in southern Sweden; and a residency at the 2017 Site-Responsive Art Residency and Biennial at I-Park. 

Dario Robleto, Visiting Artist
Transdisciplinary artist, writer, teacher and “citizen-scientist” Dario Robleto’s (Houston, TX) research-driven practice transforms unexpected materials such as melted vinyl records, dinosaur bones, meteorites, 19th-century heartbeat recordings and other artifacts from humanity’s past into intricately handcrafted objects that reflect personal meditation on love, death, memory and healing. His numerous solo exhibitions include venues such as the Menil Collection, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver. Group exhibitions include Prospect 4: The Lotus In Spite of the Swamp; Explode Every Day: An Inquiry into the Phenomena of Wonder, MASS MoCA; SITE: 20 Years/20 Shows, SITE Sante Fe; Nouveau Festival 5th Édition, Centre Pompidou; and the Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art. He is currently serving as a Cullen College Engineering Artist-In-Residence in Neuroaesthetics at the University of Houston and at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, CA. 

Core Graduate Faculty
Chris Stiegler, Chair of the MFA in Studio Art
Adriane Herman, Professor of the MFA in Studio Art & Printmaking & Digital Media
Joshua Reiman, Assistant Professor of the MFA in Studio Art & Sculpture 
Gail Spaien, Professor of the MFA in Studio Art & Painting

Maine College of Art is now accepting applications for the MFA in Studio Art program.