ABOUT VISUAL ARTS

In the Visual Arts Department at CU Denver, the city becomes our canvas, industry leaders become professors and a passion becomes a profession. We do our best work designing in a digital lab or putting paint to canvas in a studio. Our students have access to state-of-the art digital labs, sculpture studios, industrial equipment and darkrooms. They find opportunities at the Denver Art Museum, in galleries across the Front Range and at digital studios like Pixar. That’s how the College of Arts & Media unites the ability to create with the means to succeed.

 

EMPHASIS AREAS:

3D Graphics & Animation

Preparing students to work in a growing variety of fields that use animated digital computer graphics, 3D Graphics & Animation is operated by the nationally ranked and recognized CU Denver Digital Animation Center. 

Explore Animation

Art History

Art History studies visual cultures, spanning ancient to contemporary art and across diverse media. Students hone skills in research, visual analysis, and communications, while understanding and expressing art in its social and cultural contexts.

Explore Art History

Art Practices

Art Practices is a professional degree program in studio art, where students self-select two studio art concentrations. The emphasis provides students with dynamic knowledge of the materials, methods, concepts and subjects to make them competitive in the global contemporary art world.

Explore Art Practices

Digital Design

Through an interdisciplinary approach, Digital Design produces designers who use technology in innovative ways and understand the cultural impact of digital technologies to produce solutions for branding, advertising, social causes and to solve human problems.

Explore Digital Design

Illustration

Illustration is a practice in conceptual illustration, digital illustration, rendering, perspective, painting, exhibition preparation, professional practices and the use of various artistic and illustration techniques.

Explore Illustration

Photography

Developing skills in traditional and digital photography while refining creative and conceptual approaches to the medium, Photography emphasizes artistic development integrating the history of photography, critical theory, and contemporary practice.

Explore Photography

GUEST SPEAKERS

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Congratulations to the 2021 Outstanding Graduates

Visual Arts celebrates the Outstanding Graduates of 2021:

Florence Blackwell, Art History and Photography
Huitzilli Oronia, Digital Design

These exceptional students have demonstrated creativity, scholarship, and inquisitiveness that has embodies Visual Arts at CU Denver.

Read About the Outstanding Grads
31 days denver

Shane Still '21 receives praise for "31 Days Denver"

Shane Still '21 (photography/communications double major) is honoring each day of Mental Health Awareness Month through his BFA thesis 31 Days Denver, an audio visual exploration of the mental health affects from the COVID-19 pandemic.

View the coverage of 31 Days Denver

Denver 9News
4CBS Denver
CU Denver News

Experience "31 Days Denver"
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Visual Arts BFA Thesis Exhibtions

The 2021 Visual Arts Thesis Exhibitions are a testament to the creative, artistic, and scholarly spirit of the College of Arts & Media, the Visual Arts Department, and the class of 2021.

BFA Exhibition 1 Showing April 14 – April 29, 2021
Closing Celebration Thursday, April 29
Limited In-Person (By Invitation Only)
On Zoom (Open To Public): http://bit.ly/BFAThesisClosingCelebraion1

BFA Exhibition 2 Showing May 4 – May 19, 2021
Closing Celebration Thursday, May 13
Limited In-Person (By Invitation Only)
On Zoom (Open To Public): http://bit.ly/BFAThesisClosingCelebration2

Visit the Emmanuel Gallery Website