Pictorial Art

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The SJSU Pictorial Art Program sees itself in a unique position in both time and place to examine the inherent and complex ability of painting to produce thinking with an explosion of new technologies that also aspire to produce knowledge. The pictorial arts simultaneously display knowledge and provoke new intellectual and physical activity. This power, argues Havard Art, Film, and Visual Studies Professor David Joselit, has a unique ability to visualize digital and social networks. SJSU’s geographic location in the Bay Area is a strength. As part of the California State school system, our students have access to the region's economic and intellectual industries, influences, and resources.

 

A large portion of our student body is drawn from the surrounding counties and many are first generation college students. Our department as a result can offer SJSU Pictorial Arts students access and opportunities to apply their education and skill sets to the visual system of the Bay Area’s growing economies. The faculty in the Pictorial Department understands that diversity in the student body is a core strength at SJSU. Our students can exercise influence and become leaders in their chosen mediums by applying their skills to produce meaning around the diverse kinds of questions that will confront them in their lives after graduation.

 


painting of people

Undergraduate Program – BFA

Degrees: BFA Art Concentration in Pictorial Art | Minor in Pictorial Art

 

The Pictorial Art BFA program provides students rigorous formal and conceptual training in the unique historical and contemporary practices and methodologies specific to the disciplines of drawing, painting, and printmaking. Courses in the program encourage the development of innovation and experimentation while simultaneously building a visual fluency and sensitivity to hand rendered and digital systems of representation.

 

Students in the program receive ample studio space and access to facilities that support the instruction and practice of a diverse range of 2-D traditional and digital printing technologies. As such, the Pictorial Art Program promotes a transformational and trans-disciplinary, contemporary approach to the creation of 2-D art by providing students with the opportunity to explore and combine processes like painting, drawing, lithography, intaglio, screenprinting, and photogravure with digital tools and state-of-the-art software – Adobe Creative Suite, Procreate, Wacom Tablets and Digital Drawing in AR/VR and XR. Students in Picotrial Art also produce works ranging from graphic novels, indie-zines, illustrations, digital video and animations, staged performances, works using sound, and small and large art-installations.

 

Quick Links

 

Program Learning Outcomes (PLO)

 


drawing of a man and a woman

Graduate Program – MFA

MFA Art Concentration in Pictorial Art

 

The Pictorial Art MFA program provides students rigorous, formal and conceptual training in the unique historical and contemporary practices and methodologies specific to the disciplines of drawing, painting, and printmaking. Courses in the program encourage the development of innovation and experimentation while simultaneously building a visual fluency and sensitivity to hand rendered and digital systems of representation.

 

MFA students in the program receive private studio space and access to facilities that support the instruction and practice of a diverse range of 2-D traditional and digital printing technologies. As such, the Pictorial Art MFA Program encourages a transformal contemporary approach to the creation of 2-D art by providing students with the opportunity to explore and combine processes like painting, drawing, lithography, intaglio, screenprinting, and photogravure with digital tools and software.


The faculty at San Jose State University are actively involved in the contemporary art community and exhibit nationally and internationally. Faculty work explores a broad range of formal and conceptual approaches. Graduate students are encouraged to develop their own creative and expressive directions through work with the faculty, individual studio projects, gallery exhibitions, interaction with the professional art community in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the investigation of current issues and concepts as presented in the graduate seminars.

 

Quick Links

 

Program Learning Outcomes (PLO)

 


Facilities

 

General studio/classroom space is available for painting and drawing and there are well-equipped support facilities such as wood and metal shops. Graduate printmakers have the use of four large studio/classrooms, as well as the intaglio and lithography press prep rooms. A papermaking lab is also available. Three intaglio presses and four lithography presses allow the printer to work in monoprint or in editions, on stones or aluminum plates. The screen printing studio has a large vacuum-exposure table for exposing plates and stencils. The photo darkroom, with graphic arts camera and enlargers, allows printmakers access to a variety of photo-printmaking processes for all printmaking media.

The Department of Art & Art History Printmaking Program facilities are located on the third floor of the Art building. Intaglio printing takes place in Art 309 & 309A, lithography in Art 307, and screen printing in Art 301. Additionally, there is a dedicated printmaking darkroom in Art 303. This 4000 sq-ft facility includes a fume collection system in all the printing areas.

 


Program Coordinator

Prof. Shaun O'Dellshaun.odell@sjsu.edu

 


Graduate Coordinator

Prof. Rhonda Holbertonrhonda.holberton@sjsu.edu


Faculty

 

Professor O'Dell smiling in a beanie.

Shaun O'Dell

Assistant Professor

Area Coordinator - Pictorial Art

Art 315 | shaun.odell@sjsu.edu

 

Shaun O’Dell received a BA from the New College of California, San Francisco, in 2002 and an MFA from Stanford University in 2004. His work explores the intertwining realities of the human and natural orders.His work has been exhibited widely in the US and internationally.

 

O’Dell is represented in New York by Susan Inglett Gallery, in Houston by Inman Gallery, and in San Francisco by Gallery 16 and on Long Island by Halsey/McKay. He has won numerous awards and honors including the Tournesol Award (2009, Headlands Center for the Arts), Diebenkorn Teaching Fellowship (2006, SF Art Institute), Artadia Award (2005, San Francisco) and The Fleishhacker Foundation Award in 2002 . His work is included in a number of permanent collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, NY, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Bronx Museum of Arts, the de Young Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Berkeley Art Museum and the DESTE Foundation of Contemporary Art, O'Dell lives and works in San Francisco.

https://shaunodell.com/

 


a photo of a woman with dark hair and a fuzzy sweater sitting in front of a white background

Carla Fisher Schwartz

Assistant Professor

Art 319 | carla.fisherschwartz@sjsu.edu

 

Carla Fisher Schwartz received her MFA in Visual Arts from Washington University in St. Louis, where she was awarded the Bell Cramer Award in Printmaking, and her BA in Studio Art from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Carla's studio practice investigates the relationship between the mapped image and contemporary notions of exploration, virtuality, and the simulated environment through print media, sculpture and video installation. Her teaching specializes in Digital and Hybrid Processes. Her art has been exhibited at venues including the Chicago Artists Coalition (Chicago, IL), the SUBMISSION Gallery (Chicago, IL), the Cleve Carney Gallery (Glen Ellyn, IL), ACRE Projects (Chicago, IL) and the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum (St. Louis, MO). Recent residencies include Design Inquiry (Vinalhaven, ME), Terrain Residency (Springfield, IL), ACRE Projects (Steuben, WI) and HATCH Projects (Chicago, IL). 

carlafisherschwartz.com

 


Irene painting with a brush onto a screen.

Irene Carvajal

Senior Lecturer

irene.carvajal@sjsu.edu

 

Irene Carvajal is an interdisciplinary Costa Rican-American artist. She received her BFA from the University of Kansas and her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. Her work examines labor, gender and colonialism.

 

Irene has exhibited and participated in residencies in the United States, Japan, Mexico and Costa Rica. She exhibits regularly at Ruths Table Gallery in San Francisco and is affiliated with Teorética Gallery in San Jose, Costa Rica. She is a member of We da Pepo art collective and is a 2022 California Arts Council Fellow. She has been teaching at SJSU since 2016. She has also taught at the San Francisco Art Institute, Stanford and Berkeley. 

 

 


Photo of Pictorial faculty Erik Friedman looking angrily into camera.

Erik Friedman

Senior Lecturer

erik.friedman@sjsu.edu

 

Erik Friedman completed his BFA from Parsons School of Design in New York, and his MFA from San Jose State University in San Jose, CA.

 

He has been a Lecturer in the Pictorial Area at San Jose State since 1999, and resides in Oakland, CA, where he has been a practicing artist concentrating in drawing and painting. His work has been shown throughout the Bay Area, California, and at Art Fairs in Portland, Miami, and New York.

 


Pictorial faculty Donald Feasel holding a paint roller.

Donald Feasél

Senior Lecturer

donald.feasel@sjsu.edu

 

Donald Feasél is a painter and lecturer living in San José, CA. He received his BA from the University of California, Los Angeles (1976) and his MFA from the University of California, Berkeley (1984). 

 

He is represented by Brian Gross Fine Art in San Francisco where he has had 8 solo shows. Public collections include the San Jose Museum of Art and the Rene di Rosa Preserve, Napa, CA. He has been teaching at San José since 2006 after previous appointments at San Francisco Art Institute, California College of the Arts, and Dominican University.