Our supportive community offers tools and ecosystems helping students engage historical and contemporary criteria for making art. Innovative faculty help students refine approaches to being collaborators, thought-leaders, educators—and artists. Students have access to the DC area's internationally renowned museums and galleries, in addition to Katzen Arts Center and campus facilities. Flexible degree programs offer courses in sculpture, painting, video, photography, drawing, printmaking, expanded media, and special topics:
BA Studio Art MFA Studio Art BA Photography
DC Museums & Galleries
Beyond AU's Katzen Arts Center and other campus Arts Facilities, Washington, DC, offers an unsurpassed level of world class museums, most of which offer free admission and are within a 20 minute metrorail ride from our studio facilities. From the Phillips Collection (which was America's first museum of Modern Art and the place where American University's Art programs emerged more than a century ago) to the East and West buildings of National Gallery of Art; From the Hirshhorn and the National Museum of African Art to the National Museum of Women in the Arts, these amazing institutions act as a vital component of our students' experience in Washington, DC. The American University Museum at the Katzen Center has become one of the leading museums of contemporary art in the region. Additionally there are many thriving spaces and fellowship opportunities for emerging artists.
- National Gallery of Art
- National Portrait Gallery
- Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden
- National Museum of the American Indian
- National Museum of African Art
- National Museum of African American History and Culture
- Freer & Sackler National Museums of Asian Art
- National Museum of Women in the Arts
- Phillips Collection
- Textile Museum
- Archives of American Art
- Renwick Gallery
- Art Museum of the Americas
- Kreeger Museum
- Glenstone Museum
- Washington Project for the Arts
- Transformer
- Halcyon
- Hamiltonian
- STABLE
Bulletins
Josh Evans Tetzlaff's (CAS '23) solo exhibition Gaze Upon Gays runs at The DC Arts Center May 26-June 25.
Professor Danielle Mysliwiec is featured in the Maake Magazine artist spotlight.
Visiting Artists Series
American University's Studio Art MFA program presents visiting artists throughout the academic year.
Spotlight
Shiloah Symone Coley
MFA Studio Art
More about Shiloah
Both inside and outside the art studio, Studio Art MFA Candidate Shiloah Symone Coley interrogates the existing stories we come to believe as truths about ourselves, others, and the world around us.
Shiloah believes community-engaged work is crucial in unpacking the different perspectives that contribute to the narratives of our society. By seeking to center the voices of her collaborators, her process explores what it means to have agency in telling your own story, and she has facilitated youth-led art projects in New York City, Madison, WI, and Johannesburg, South Africa.
Shiloah is currently a Sherman Fairchild Foundation Fellow at the Phillips Collection, working with its Community Engagement and Marketing-Communications departments to develop meaningful storytelling and programming with the DC community.
After graduation she wants to continue collaborating with the communities around her, while also maintaining a dedicated studio practice through a residency or fellowship alongside an educational institution or nonprofit. She says that being at AU has given her an opportunity to rigorously research and advance her practice.
When I arrived at American University, I was primarily a painter. Now I work in a much more anti-disciplinary collage fashion that's driven by the themes and motifs I'm engaging with conceptually. And at the Phillips, I've had the opportunity to see the inner workings of how an art institution operates. It's been an incredibly educational experience.