This course will challenge students to develop their unique visual language through a process-based exploration of painting. Through course activities, including demonstrations and presentations, students will embrace chance and failure as integral parts of their studio practice. Students will explore processes such as additive and reductive methods, intuitive mark making, and monotypes, among others. This approach will emphasize process as a method to investigate meaning, or content.

Students will leave this course with an extensive body of work including paintings, works on paper, monotypes, and writings. This includes the completion of ten smaller paintings of varying size that will be used to generate a final painting sized at least 36” x 48”. Through this body of work, students will engage with diverse historical methods of painting while also practicing their ability to discuss research and interest in a subject or idea.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $375.00

Elective

 Gardens, symbolic realms of pleasure and contemplation, serve as the focal point of this hybrid studio and seminar course. As winter arrives in Providence, we will immerse ourselves in the leafy landscapes of South Asia, seeking respite and inspiration. Our exploration will span centuries, examining garden and landscape paintings by South Asian artists from the 1500s to the present day. Works by miniaturist Mansur, Arpita Singh, Mithu Sen, T Venkanna, Sosa Joseph and Sagarika Sundaram will be studied alongside paintings by Hieronymous  Bosch, Henri Rousseau, Georgia O’Keefe, and others. 

 Students will be encouraged to look at gardens conceptually, drawing from personal narratives, cultural concepts, and artistic inclinations. Through a series of exercises emphasizing formal elements like color, light, and texture, students will equip themselves with the tools to render these envisioned gardens. Reflective assignments and thought exercises will prompt them to contemplate their personal connections with gardens and outdoor spaces, fostering a deeper understanding of themes such as intimacy, memory, community, and belonging within the realm of landscape painting. 

Through slideshows and collective analysis, students will deconstruct themes, intentions, and formal strategies embedded within the works shown to them. Projects will challenge each person to formulate a working definition of a garden and articulate the relevance of the landscape painting genre in today’s context. 

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00

Elective

Artists throughout history have used avatars and alter-egos as a way to question the construction of identity, disrupt dominant narratives, and critically engage with stereotypes and representation.  In this studio-based painting course, students will explore their own conceptually grounded avatar or alter ego through the development and execution of 3 series of paintings.

Beginning with an examination of the historical and theoretical foundations of self-representation in art, students will explore the concept of the "self" as a fluid and mutable construct, considering how identity is shaped by social, cultural, and technological factors.

Looking at artists like Tschabalala Self, Kent Monkman, Cindy Sherman, Didier Williams, Byron Kim, and Andy Warhol and engaging with texts by José Esteban Muñoz, Sara Ahmed, and Adrian Piper, students will gain an understanding of how artists have used avatars and alter egos as tools of investigation, empowerment and disruption.  

Through critical discussions, slide lectures, videos, and readings, alongside the making of sketches, studies, and painting assignments, students will create their own personal alter ego or avatar that will inform a final series of paintings.  Students will use this series as a way to deepen and explore formal, conceptual, narrative and material themes in their work.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00

Elective

Drawing is foundational. Most of us begin to draw during our early years, often before we are even capable of naming the subjects we depict. Fundamental as it may be, drawing remains far from straightforward, especially when we abandon the anchoring impulses of depiction and representation for the unmoored territory of abstraction, expression, and pure gesture. This class will delve into the limitless potential of drawing practices that are untethered from the defining, categorizing constraints of the civilized eye. We will engage all our senses in an attempt to expand our notion of what constitutes a drawing practice as broadly as we are able. Our class work will be oriented toward process, discovery, and experimentation. The work will be collective, collaborative, embodied, and interdisciplinary. We will make contact with various non-traditional approaches to drawing-making through forbears such as spiritualist automatism, Gutai, and the Happenings of the 1960's, among others. As a class, we will explore the value of rule-making and rule-breaking in the process of drawing. Notions of authorship will be opened to question as we work collaboratively to use drawing as a tool for self-knowledge and conviviality. Relationships between drawing and our immediate physical surroundings will especially be emphasized through an investigation into the phenomenological and performative possibilities of drawing—there will be opportunities to develop performance projects in hybridity with our drawing work. Class time will be used primarily for drawing experiments, generative games, collaborative exercises, and critiques. The material requirements for this course are very open-ended, and students can expect to spend less than $100 if they so choose. Students will be encouraged to find ways to integrate our class work with their personal, preexisting practices.

This course explores friendship as a critical framework for creative practice. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s concept of “friendship as a way of life,” the course expands the notion of friendship to encompass personal, intellectual, and artistic collaboration. Through case studies of friendships between artists, such as Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, Andy Warhol and Jean Michel Basquiat, Agnes Martin and Ellsworth Kelly, Betye Saar and Allison Saar, Peter Hujar and David Wojnarowicz, Nancy Grossman and Romare Bearden, Darrel Ellis and Miguel Ferrando, and Roni Horn and Felix Gonzalez-Torres, students will learn how these relationships blurred the lines between personal and artistic lives, producing some of the most influential works of the 20th century. Students will engage in group exercises and collaborative projects in response to the RISD Museum collection and program. They will select works from the museum’s collection that resonate with the course theme to create dialogues with their own projects, culminating in an exhibition proposal that manifests friendship as a way of art. This exhibition proposal will be considered to be part of exhibition taught and hosted in the Memorial hall painting dept gallery that will occur during the last two weeks of wintersession. The  gallery will be transformed into a queer social space for use by the whole  RISD community. Students will have the opportunity to collectively present their proposal to the artist, engage in discussion, and receive feedback. In an art world where we are often made to feel like we have to be in competition with each other, this seminar will highlight the importance of friendship in artistic production, revealing the cross-pollination of ideas and the emotional and intellectual support systems that allows artists to flourish.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $75.00

Elective

This studio course is an exploration of the basic techniques of oil painting from observation. We will push paint in color and form to wildly varying ends, drawing upon subjects that range from microscopic objects in the Nature Lab to the depth of the sky. Each student will be encouraged to develop a personal relationship to the materials that guides their process of translation from life to painting. We begin with color theory: students will learn to identify, feel, and modulate value, chroma, and temperature to describe an observed environment in oils. Students will hone their skills in drawing, color mixing, and oil paint application. They will build painterly range through explorations of scale, mark, and composition. Our guiding force will be close looking–the emotional and conceptual core of observational painting, as we discuss and experience its possibilities and implications. We will also cover the basics of stretching canvas, priming surfaces, and using mediums.

The class will move from up close objects painted in the controlled studio environment towards plein-air painting in the landscape. Throughout the term, there will be presentations and readings that introduce students to the breadth of modern and contemporary observational painting, and stimulate discussions on observational painting’s potential narratives and hierarchies. In group critiques, students will challenge their conceptual understanding of the subjects they paint and the spaces they witness. The course will culminate in an ambitious, observational painting project of the student’s choosing. Students will have many opportunities to choose subjects that relate to their current practice and interests; the primary focus will be on the translation of in-class studio time into a thriving personal studio practice. This course is open to all levels of painting experience and beginning students will be encouraged.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $200.00

Elective

This studio course mines the idea of research in contemporary art. It offers the students the space and support needed to cultivate their own methodology of research—one that is dedicated to their unique art practice. There is a porous and slippery space where visual arts and critical theory commingle. It is a space full of playful potential. Here, we move beyond the exhausted texts commonly thrown at art students. Instead, we imagine and find inspiration from intimate friendships among visual artists and thinkers—and all that they make possible for each other. In between the lines, in the corner of archives, in the silence of kind gossip; we honor and take inspiration from dinner parties, cafes, bars, and abandoned public libraries, where our elders found each other. Fred Moten sits with Julie Mehretu; Saidiya Hartman with Okwui Okpokwasili; Trinh T Minh-ha with Theresa Hakyung Cha; José Esteban Muñoz with Ana Mendieta: we keep imagining, smudging the lines between art and theory, reality and fiction, history and desire, now and the past.   It all becomes blurry. Call it research, call it art: we have work to do.

 Flirting is a studio class, a space dedicated to visual art, studio practice, visits, group crits, discussions, and time spent among artist students. Each student will work on their own body of work and be offered close guidance to explore research. We will brainstorm and find artists, texts, archives, histories, oral stories, and rituals in support of each student’s research and practice. Instead of papers, presentations, and reports, we will return to each student’s work. Exploring formats such as studio visits and group crit, we gather as a class to talk, dig deeper, and explore the artist’s terms, context, political urgency, archives, and history narrative. There will be periodic texts and artists introduced to help guide our path and ground our gathering: Saidiya Hartman, José Esteban Muñoz, Mariam Ghani, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Judith Butler, William Kentridge, Hans Haacke, Julie Mehretu, Wael Shawky, Cecilia Vicuña, to name a few.

Elective

This course delves into the fascinating world of dollhouses—not merely as children's toys but as intricate art forms that reflect the idealized notions of domestic spaces through history and across cultures. This studio-based class takes students on a comprehensive journey through the evolution of dollhouses, from their origins in ancient Egyptian tombs to the elaborate Victorian models, and onto today's mass-produced designs, including the iconic plastic Barbie homes

Students will engage with a rich curriculum that includes lectures, in-depth readings, and hands-on research, providing them with a broad understanding of the cultural and historical significance of these miniature dwellings. They will explore dollhouses from different corners of the globe, uncovering the diverse narratives and artistic expressions encapsulated within these diminutive spaces. Throughout the course, participants will apply their learning to create their own miniature rooms, incorporating a mix of traditional and contemporary techniques. This project-based approach will enhance students' skills in realistic oil painting, woodworking, and fabric manipulation, ensuring a tactile, immersive experience in art making. The studio class emphasizes the intersection of craft and design, encouraging students to think critically about space, scale, and storytelling through the lens of dollhouse construction.

The course investigates play and collaboration as an integral component of the ideation and object-making processes and facilitates a range of radical, interdisciplinary approaches to artmaking. The course illuminates the structures, politics and principles of tabletop games, imaginative play and sports and explores games theoretically as mythology and metaphor for life and art-making, discussing a range of integral ideas such as aspiration, perseverance, practice, spectacle, individualism, teamwork, opposition, success, failure, vulnerability, obsession and desire. Students will play collaboratively and independently while making crucial inquiries into the profound meaning of games and play as tool, meaning and metaphor.

The class, currently led by Painting faculty Meena Hasan and Kelley-Ann Lindo,  provides a model for a long-term program offering across departments. Intended to be collaboratively taught between at least two faculty members, the course’s open theoretical framework has the potential to expand into multiple mediums and methodologies and across student years from undergraduate to graduate to create a dynamic and evolving seminar that will work to heighten students’ awareness of concerns in contemporary and historic art practices as well as their own studio practice. 

The course will be structured around three group critiques, frequent class discussions, individual meetings, presentations and in-class and out-of-class work both individual and collaborative. The first part of the course explores play and collaboration alongside introductory lectures. Mid-semester consists of research presentations and initial explorations that culminate in a final project designed by each student with the support of the class. The invited Visiting Artist(s) discuss how play and games function in their own practices, as material and method, and there will be at least one field trip during the second part of the semester to an exhibition, performance and/or competitive event.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00

Elective

Painting from Observation will be a team taught Schedule A and B marathon for 6 credits. Drawing, collage, printmaking and painting will introduce students to contemporary painting as practised by the RISD Painting Department. This course is a comprehensive introduction to painting. It is designed to develop confidence and experience with paint and painting. We will examine historical and contemporary trends and paint from life models and photo sources. Fundamental techniques for basic ground preparation, oil painting mediums and direct as well as in direct processes will be taught. Representational painting will be the primary focus but experiences in abstract painting will also be encouraged. We will learn abstract principles that organize composition, depict spatial illusion and describe form while developing a shared language for critiques. No prior painting experience is required.

Elective

Solo performance is perhaps the oldest form of performance.  Origins date back to a singular storyteller sitting around a fire sharing the histories of their people and linked to ritualistic forms of knowledge and self - expansion.  This class focuses on the range of elements necessary to devise, develop and perform a durational solo work. Grounded in class readings, lectures and in class workshops, students will learn and use various tools, resources, and skills of performance to create their own pieces. A performance can be framed in so many ways. We will consider how various kinds of solo performances all rely on similar basic building blocks.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00

Elective

This is a hands-on course, designed for advanced painting students who are fascinated by color, surface, transformation and alchemy, DIY processes, craftmanship, invention, and the stuff of paint. It is for those who are eager to dive deep into all sorts of materials, methods and techniques. The objective of the class is to arm students with the tools and resources to figure out how to make what they imagine and to expand their practice through material exploration and information sharing. With an emphasis on experimentation, play, research and development; advanced students explore, problem solve and implement specific grounds, paints, supports, mediums and tools into their own practices. The level of specialization and expertise students may eventually desire for their work could require seeking the advice of paint manufacturers, conservators, fabricators, other artists or even experts in other fields. How to identify and acquire knowledge outside of one's comfort zone, approaching and finding a common terminology with peers and specialists is also a part of this course. Relevant art historical and contemporary methodologies, techniques and materials will be presented. Environmental Health and Safety guidelines that apply to painting practice and painting studio safety will be an integral part of this course.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $150.00

Elective

Museums are stewards of history; the present moment is radically testing the role museums play as storytellers while also challenging how and for whom historical narratives are told. The colonial history of this region was profoundly shaped by an industry built on the systematic hunting and harvesting of whales, driving entire species to the brink of extinction. Located just 35 miles east of Providence, the New Bedford Whaling Museum tells this story and offers a challenging look into the great sacrifices made in order for American industry and culture to thrive. Through several visits to the New Bedford Whaling Museum this course asks students to reflect upon and interpret a wide range of interrelated subjects, objects, and their shared histories and relationships to both humans, whales, and the environment. From folk art to nautical culture, from colonial economies to subsistence hunting, and from natural history to curatorial practice, through research, students illuminate the stories the ocean has to tell us about ourselves so that our recognition of the past may help guide us towards a more sustainable future. With enhanced access to museum archives students address these topics with research-based projects employing a range of fine art media with specific attention to contextualizing within different modes of museum display. The New Bedford Whaling museum boasts a rich collection of unique and unusual artifacts, issuing a cautionary tale, and asking visitors to contemplate the tenuous line between the pursuit of profit and the destruction of that which is most sacred.

Elective

This first-year graduate seminar approaches painting as a technical skill, a historical practice and an intellectual project. Weekly sessions begin with group discussions of key readings about recent painting. Readings are organized in three sections. The first looks backward, to the problem of medium that preoccupied modernist painting and, residually, contemporary practices until the 1980s. The second section looks at the academy, the institution and the art market, and their effect on how painting is produced, disseminated, discussed and received. The third, the most speculative, looks laterally at a range of contemporary practices and their cultural frameworks from the 1990s to the present. Frequent studio visits will occur and drive some of the reading and discussion.

Elective

This studio-based course will provide the foundation necessary to understand basic color theory and practice in painting, art and design. A historical and cultural perspective will be introduced to inform ongoing color studies executed in the studio. Students will acquire the vocabulary to articulate color phenomena and the means to exploit the expressive potential of color in their work. Color studies will be principally created with gouache, and a variety of other materials and means will also be explored. lectures, demonstrations, and museum visits will supplement studio work. (An in class presentation is required).

Elective

This studio-based course will provide the foundation necessary to understand basic color theory and practice in painting, art and design. A historical and cultural perspective will be introduced to inform ongoing color studies executed in the studio. Students will acquire the vocabulary to articulate color phenomena and the means to exploit the expressive potential of color in their work. Color studies will be principally created with gouache, and a variety of other materials and means will also be explored. lectures, demonstrations, and museum visits will supplement studio work. (An in class presentation is required).

Undergraduate students register for section 01.

Graduate students register for section 02.

Elective

This studio-based course will provide the foundation necessary to understand basic color theory and practice in painting, art and design. A historical and cultural perspective will be introduced to inform ongoing color studies executed in the studio. Students will acquire the vocabulary to articulate color phenomena and the means to exploit the expressive potential of color in their work. Color studies will be principally created with gouache, and a variety of other materials and means will also be explored. lectures, demonstrations, and museum visits will supplement studio work. (An in class presentation is required).

Undergraduate students register for section 01.

Graduate students register for section 02.

Elective

This studio-based course will provide the foundation necessary to understand basic color theory and practice in painting, art and design. A historical and cultural perspective will be introduced to inform ongoing color studies executed in the studio. Students will acquire the vocabulary to articulate color phenomena and the means to exploit the expressive potential of color in their work. Color studies will be principally created with gouache, and a variety of other materials and means will also be explored. lectures, demonstrations, and museum visits will supplement studio work. (An in class presentation is required).

Elective

The work intensive studio course will involved students in an intense visual, aesthetic and theoretical discussion around the historical relationship of Cinema to Painting and Arts Culture in general and move on to the analyze the current embodiment of Cinema's more conflated and confounded, co-dependant relationship to the Art's of today, tapping into the cross-pollination resulting of imagery, politics and theory's as they apply. Each class meeting will involve studio work and discussion and culminate with a film screening. The film screenings will move forward from Cinema's very beginnings to a few of today's best Indie films. The concentration of the course will be assigned painting projects that will be direct responses to the films being screened and related critiques of these projects as they pertain to the films and the applicable supplemental literature, allowing the discussion around Cinema, cinematic and art critical theory and the Art culture to be transferred to the students individual works thus allowing for the work to be seen in a larger context.

Elective

An introduction to the basic language of the painting discipline. Emphasis on the plastic and formal considerations necessary for work that will become an increasingly personal statement.

Enrollment is limited to Sophomore Painting Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Painting