Everything is made up of or emits energy. How can we both utilize and visualize its presence? This course expands the practice of drawing to include not only alternative materials and methods but also addresses the energy of the body itself as an instrument. The course material will include an introduction to current research in the fields of applied kinesiology, quantum mechanics and the philosophy of yoga. We will discuss the work of artists such as Adrian Piper, Joseph Bueys, Taisha Paggett, Helen Mirra, Mirko Ilic, and Marina Abramović, among others, as we utilize the energy of the body to enact an expanded drawing practice.

In our era of the remix, sampling has become its own art form. This course will critically explore the material and conceptual possibilities of the mash-up. From the history of montage in the Weimar Republic to sampling from rap songs, the remix has always been a way to synthesize critical dialog—whether playful or pointed, it has been used as a strategy to embed place, context, cultural references and politically-charged content. Through collage, drawing, photography, printmaking and book arts, students will mine personal and institutional archives to create works that put unlikely or unexpected source material in critical conversation. Students will explore how to synthesize deeply researched subject matter with material experimentation, hijack graphic design language to subvert content, and critically use appropriated imagery and text to tell alternative narratives. Studio projects will be supplemented by relevant demos, readings, and discussions of art historical movements such as DADA and Pattern and Decoration. All projects will be contextualized alongside discussions of contemporary artists such as Taryn Simon, Sheida Solemani, Sam Vernon, Mickalene Thomas, Catherine Lorde, Clive Murphy, Christopher Clary, Hank Willis Thomas, Guadalupe Maravilla and many more.

This course invites students to reconsider material choice in their art practices—specifically the use of non-art materials to challenge, disrupt, or subvert traditional approaches to artmaking. Students will experiment with material and process as a source for meaning and metaphor in their 2D practice. Using decolonizing methodologies, students will examine their own creative practice through personalized research, focused exploration of contemporary artists, and an examination of the role that history, power, and identity has on their creative pursuits. Through lectures, presentations and discussions, students will be introduced to examples of material choice, process, and spatial organization beyond the western canon. We will consider artists like Margarita Cabrera, Tomashi Jackson, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Guadalupe Maravilla, Jeffery Gibson, and many others, alongside the consideration of writings by Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gloria E. Anzaldúa, Fred Moten, Ibram X. Kendi, and others.

This course delves into 2D conceptual art through analog, or handmade works, and the catalog, or archives and records from the past and present. We will explore strategies for encoding information in a 2D plane, data collection and diagrams, dissemination and multiples, performative drawing, and homage painting. This course challenges us to draw a web of connections from the past and present, examining who and what our work is in conversation with, revealing our cultural, personal, and/or political investments in making. We will conduct this exploration through painting, drawing, print, and lens-based processes accompanied by relevant demos. There will be weekly discussions, readings including Alan deSouza’s How Art Can Be Thought: A Handbook for Change, and investigations into the works of Adrian Piper, Wendy Red Star, Sadie Barnette, Dario Robleto, Barti Kher, Tomashi Jackson, Sheida Soleimani, Kehinde Whiley, Felipe Baeza, Joiri Minaya, Chella Man, and many more.

In this experimental course we will investigate the liminal space of relief, where 2D is transitioning into 3D. In a world where texture and slowness has given way to flatness and speed, it is deeply satisfying to reclaim materiality; to examine the imprint of the volumetric in photo through cyanotype, to emphasize printmaking’s physical dimension by blowing up the scale of the etched line into the built surface of the collagraph, and to use food as a source of color, and scent in image making. Process and an iterative way of working will slow our decision-making down and allow for a wider consideration of content and form. Some of the processes explored are stamping, stencils, transfers, monoprint, collage, and the book form. These processes can operate independently or provide beginnings for other practices such as painting. In examining the relief space, we will study anti-capitalist and do-it-yourself movements such as Fluxus, Dada, and Arté Povera and redefine them for our own time and place. As such, we will revisit “the found” in our hyper-consumer world where we have ever-growing heaps of daily waste and use it to make art. This resourceful approach can range from weaving found text and imagery to assembling found objects which get deconstructed or archived for intentional reuse and seeing anew. Some of the artists we will investigate in support of our endeavors are El Anatsui, Do Ho Suh, Tomashi Jackson, Mark Bradford, Maya Lin, Susan Goethel-Campbell, Ann Hamilton, Joiri Minaya, Fanny Allié, Glenn Ligon, Mira Schendel, and Ruth Osawa among others.