Welcome to the School of Art and Visual Studies

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At SA/VS, we believe that a creative life is an extraordinary life. We’re a home for inspired creatives, educators, and visual scholars who make creativity central to their experience.  Every day, SA/VS is alive with activity: Sculpture students critique large metal installations in the atrium while students in a Fiber class quilt outside in the sun. A Performance Art class explores ideas for costuming and public interaction while a Graphic Design class displays typographic posters. Students install an exhibition in the Bolivar Art Gallery, in the seminar room, students interpret cultures past and present through their visual arts, and upstairs, students in Printmedia create zines by layering ink with a Risograph. From guerilla art, digital illustration, and 3D-printing to painting, animation, and still-life drawing, whatever creative opportunity you’re looking for, it’s happening here!

Explore Our Programs
Being an art educator is wonderful combination of personal creative practice and contributions to future generations. If you are excited about making art, then you can excite and encourage others to experiment and experience the joy of being an artist. 
Art History & Visual Studies (AVHS) majors are trained to develop astute observational tools that help them better analyze our image-rich world.
Where will creativity take you?
Why Limit Yourself?  When you pursue a Digital Media Design degree at U.K., you can shape your curriculum to suit your career goals!
The Master of Arts (MA) in Art Education cultivates a community of artist-researcher-teachers who ask critical questions and propose innovative solutions to issues within the field of art education.
The Master of Arts in Art History & Visual Studies prepares students with the course work, language skills, and research experience needed for further graduate study or work in a museum or educational setting.
A studio art degree prepares you for the creative life you plan to live and opens the door to an inventive career full of exploration, critical thinking, and a practice based in hands-on making.
The MFA in Curatorial Studies prepares students for careers in the expanded field of creative curation. As the first three-year hybrid MFA in Curatorial Studies in the United States, this practice-based terminal degree uniquely equips graduates for positions in a wide variety of arts and cultural organizations, as well as teaching positions at the college level.
Upcoming Events
  • Aug 15 - Oct 23 2024
    From buttons and t-shirts to leather and lace, clothing acts as a way for the LGBTQ+ community to express themselves and their queerness. One’s fashion choices can affirm identity and critique the…
    Gatton Student Center
  • Aug 30 - Sep 28 2024
    My art became a tool in my struggle against the forces of darkness. I collected the trinkets, toys, and personal possessions of people who were dying in my care, and I used those objects in the…
    Bolivar Art Gallery
  • Aug 30 - Sep 28 2024

    This exhibition features four contemporary artists recording and celebrating their queer lives as they are living them. From John Brooks's vibrant portraiture of his gay community to Ceirra…

    Bolivar Art Gallery
  • Sep 14 2024 | 1 - 4:30pm

    What Home Means to Us is a community based quilt workshop exploring our own stories of home, future possibilities for housing, and works to translate these experiences through quilt making.…

    Bolivar Art Gallery
  • Sep 20 2024 | 10am - 5:30pm, Sep 21 2024 | 10:30am - 5:30pm

    September 20-21, 2024

    Co-hosted by the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville, Queer Art | Queer Archives brings together experts specializing in queer art, theory, and…

    Bolivar Art Gallery
  • Sep 20 2024 | 10am - 5:30pm, Sep 21 2024 | 10:30am - 5:30pm

    September 20-21, 2024

    Co-hosted by the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville, Queer Art | Queer Archives brings together experts specializing in queer art, theory, and…

    Bolivar Art Gallery
  • Sep 23 2024 | 12 - 1pm

    Christine Tarkowski is an artist working in a variety of mediums, formats and collaborative conditions. Her artistic output includes; sculpture, architecture, printed matter, photography and song…

    Hazel True Haunsz Fiber Arts Studio
    Visual Arts Building Room 229
  • Oct 3 2024 | 6 - 7pm

    Bret Price is a contemporary sculptor of monumental steel. Throughout his career, Price has been interested in the challenges of raw material against the forces of nature, first beginning his…

    Metal Shop
  • Oct 4 - 31 2024
    Curatorial Studies MFA 2nd Year ProjectsOctober 4 - 31Featured in the front gallery of the Bolivar Art Gallery Reception: Oct. 3, 5-7pmPanel discussion: Oct. 25, noon

    Stephanie Berrie -I am…

    Bolivar Art Gallery
  • Oct 4 - 31 2024
    Curatorial Studies MFA 2nd Year ProjectsOctober 4 - 31Featured in the back gallery of the Bolivar Art Gallery Reception: Oct. 3, 5-7pmArtist talk: Josh Copus, Oct. 4, noonPanel discussion: Oct.…
    Bolivar Art Gallery
Created 08/10/2021
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Last Updated 07/17/2024