The Department of Art and Visual Culture balances creation and critique, providing foundations in studio practice and in contemporary and historical analysis.
The major offers two tracks: one in history and criticism and the other in studio art. The history and criticism courses focus on images, objects, and architecture made by people from different periods and places, which students situate in historical and social contexts, while the studio art courses concentrate on making, including animation, ceramics, drawing, film, painting, photography, and print.
Marisa C. Wickersham, Academic Administrative Assistant
75 Russell St
Olin Arts Center
Phone: 1-207-786-8212
mwickersham@bates.edu
The visual arts field is broad, and we prepare our students to find their place in it. Graduates have pursued careers in a variety of fields, including museum and curatorial studies, architecture, art therapy, education, film, and art conservation. Many alumni have pursued MFA and Ph.D. degrees, building on the foundations that they gained at Bates to become museum directors, arts policy leaders, professional fine artists, corporate consultants, and more.
of 2020-2024 Bates graduates are employed and/or attending graduate school — settled into their next opportunity within 6 months of graduation.
I really loved the breadth and depth of the art and visual culture department and how it taught me the ability to think across time and geography. In particular, a museum studies class I took is really what sparked my entire career in the museum world.
—Rachel Ferrante ‘10
Associate Professor of Art and Visual Culture Carolina González Valencia, adviser in the winter semester to senior studio art majors, install their work in the Bates Museum of Art for the Annual Senior Exhibition on April 9, 2025. On the lower level is Avery Lehman ’25 of Portsmouth, NH, and also exhibition installer….. Upstaris, González Valencia works with Visiting Lecturer in Art and Visual Culture Michel Droge to help Elizabeth (Lizi) Barrow ’25 of Winchester, Mass., to hang her painting on the upper level.
Our program asks students to slow down and think about how art and visual media is made, as well as what it represents, what it obscures, and how it shapes our thinking. Studio art majors undertake a yearlong thesis, concluding in an exhibition of their work at the nationally-recognized Bates Museum of Art. History and criticism-focused majors conduct independent research projects that may include hands-on experience in museums and archives.
The art and visual culture faculty write books, make films, produce scholarship, and make and exhibit art in diverse media across the globe. Faculty members have exhibited their art in galleries from New York City to Miami, present regularly at international art forums, and publish scholarly articles in renowned academic journals. Areas of expertise include multimedia art, media history and visual culture throughout the Mediterranean and Atlantic worlds, and ceramics.
Bates Theater’s production of ‘Everybody’ sold out every performance at Gannett Theater last week — waitlists at the door, eager audience members finding out they’d gotten seats five minutes before curtain — and the room earned that anticipatory urgency.
Yun Garrison, associate professor of psychology, was honored on March 8 with the Lee Young Leadership Award from the YWCA of Central Maine in recognition for her community-engaged work.
Brett Karpf walks to make sense of the world and because he has to, for reasons he’s still trying to understand. Beginning in August, fully funded by a fellowship from the Thomas J. Watson Foundation, Karpf will spend a full year walking — and thinking about walking.
