Faculty of Art

Educating artists and cultural practitioners who will redefine the meaning of contemporary art practice.

About the Faculty of Art

Our six interdisciplinary programs prepare emerging artists to be successful in today's art market and teach transferable creative skills for a wide variety of career paths.

OCAD U is located in one of the most multiracial and multicultural cities in the world, on the ancestral and traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Haudenosaunee, the Anishinaabe and the Huron-Wendat, and we aim to reflect this diversity in all aspects of our ethical and social engagements with materials, ideas, practices, and people.

The Faculty of Art, a collective of innovative and talented artists, educators, and lifelong learners:

Activates a deep knowledge of material processes in the production of images, objects, narratives and events through studio and hands-on practical experience.

Applies critical and reflexive thinking to theory and practice, making and knowing, respecting the interplay of poetics and politics.

Supports new knowledge through research and diverse modes of representation, including those that engage technological and social innovations.

Negotiates the role of individual and shared creative practices within a networked and globalized world towards responsible action.

Takes inspiration from the call to decolonize the university and ourselves, and a commitment to transformational teaching and learning that recognizes and incorporates Indigenous knowledge.

Undergraduate programs

Photo of a wall of canvases painted with abstract colour and shape

Drawing & Painting

Students perceive, read and translate the visual world into personal forms of unique pictoral expression and representation while developing technique in traditional and contemporary drawing and painting media.

Illustration of a person kneeling on the ground holding a flower.

Experimental Animation

Students develop their own creative vision and original visual storytelling while learning a wide range of animation techniques and industry-relevant skills to bring their imaginations to life.

Experimental Animation VFS Exchange

OCAD University Experimental Animation students can enrol in the following Vancouver Film School Diploma programs in their 3rd year of study for Classical Animation, 3D Animation and VFX, Animation Concept Art, Game Design, and Programming for Web, Mobile and Games.

Photo of an art installation, projected images on hanging cloth

Integrated Media

Students learn technical and creative skills in a variety of electronic and digital media that blends film, video, sound, and interactive installation.

Painting of two abstract faces on a bright pink background

Integrated Media: Life Studies Specialization

Students explore nature, the environment and the human body from the cellular to global ecosystems as inspiration for contemporary art. The program combines hands-on studio work in all mediums with courses informed by contemporary perspectives of ecology, technology and sustainability.

Photo of two people sitting on a bench wearing dried grass clothing

Photography

Approached as a fine-art medium within contemporary art practice, this program emphasizes the development of students’ artistic vision.

Printmaking & Publications

Students explore broad approaches to contemporary printmaking and publications through prints, books, zines, multiples and installations.

Photo of installation with large wooden sculptures

Sculpture/Installation

Students experiment with the making and transformation of three-dimensional objects in relation to other components, such as space, sound, text and images using a variety of materials.

Dean, Faculty of Art

Stephen Foster is an electronic media artist and researcher of mixed Haida and European heritage whose work deals with issues of Indigenous representation in popular culture through personal narrative.

Stephen holds a BFA and MFA from the Visual Arts program at York University with a focus on interdisciplinary studio. He brings valuable teaching and leadership experience from his roles as Professor and Head of the Creative Studies Department at the University of British Columbia Okanagan Campus (UBCO) as well as Director, Center of Indigenous Media Arts. Prior to these roles, Stephen held the position of Associate Dean of Graduate Studies and Research with UBCO, where he served as Chair to a variety of committees related to graduate programming, scholarships and admissions, and research development and policy.

Throughout his academic and professional art career he has worked continually around the themes of Indigenous identity and digital and electronic media, to include community-based research developing novel approaches to interactive documentary as well working in areas of video, photo and audio installation. Dedicated to an interdisciplinary teaching and research model, Stephen is specifically interested in the areas where virtual and installation-based media can intersect with community-based research. His research practice has engaged inter faculty collaborations and community-based approaches as well bridging academic disciplines of Social Science, Indigenous studies and Fine Arts practice-based research.