Washington University’s MFA in Visual Art Is Made for Renegades

Virtual Open House
On November 8, meet program faculty and take a 360° online tour of our spaces. The open house will begin at 9am (CST). The event is free; registration is required.

Plus, get your copy of Otherwise, the official MFA in Visual Art (MFA-VA) publication, and our new thesis exhibition catalogues!

About the MFA-VA Program
The Sam Fox School of Design & Visual ArtsMFA-VA program is an inclusive, close-knit community of renegade makers and thinkers. Drawing on the vast resources of Washington University in St. Louis, a tier-one research institution, the program offers students a site for rigorous inquiry, intellectual generosity, and professional preparedness. Our community instills students with the agency and resiliency essential for this generation of artists.

Learn about our new curriculum, program chair Professor Lisa Bulawsky, and our accomplished faculty mentors.

Facilities & Location
MFA-VA studios are located in Weil Hall, a brand-new, LEED-Platinum facility. Students have access to numerous specialized spaces for making, including a 3D digital fabrication lab, a textile studio, an expansive printmaking suite — home to Island Press and the Kranzberg Book Studio — and more. Studios are adjacent to the School’s Kranzberg Art & Architecture Library and the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, which recently hosted Ai Weiwei: Bare Life and is the site for the annual MFA-VA Thesis Exhibition.

We are proud of our location in St. Louis, which serves as an extension of the studio and a site of engagement for art and artists. Learn about our Office for Socially Engaged Practice and the cultural scene in St. Louis.

Core Faculty
In addition to program chair Lisa Bulawksy, our faculty members include Jamie Adams, Michael Byron, Amy Hauft, Meghan Kirkwood, Richard Krueger, Arny Nadler, Patricia Olynyk, Tim Portlock, Jack Risley, Denise Ward-Brown, Cheryl Wassenaar, and Monika Weiss.

Fall 2021 Visiting Artists & Critics
Jess T. Dugan, Meleko Mokgosi, Stephanie Syjuco, Taryn Simon and Ingrid Schaffner, Cole Lu, Hugo Crosthwaite, Deborah Roberts, and Adrian Octavius Walker.

Visit samfoxschool.wustl.edu to register for the Virtual Open House on November 8, 2021, and submit your application by January 15, 2022.

Contact graduate recruitment specialist Taylor Yocom at [email protected] for more information.

Artists Debra Baxter and Dawn Cerny curate this group show of women sculptors linked to Bard’s MFA program, now on view at form & concept gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico.


This week, how Hollywood tried to suppress a film post-9/11, Walt Whitman’s words for today, Dune director breaks down a pivotal scene, DW documents the environmental scourge of fast fashion, and much more.


Emily Eveleth’s paintings of doughnuts are lurid, funny, unsettling, sexy, off-putting, luscious, puffy, bawdy, and excessive.


Driven by the individual interests of each cohort, this program based in Austin, TX promotes intellectual curiosity, visual acuity, and direct engagement with the larger world.


Gorchov is an artist whose best pieces are purely aesthetic and totally present, here and now.


Exhibition or project grants of up to $10,000 are available to artists working across a variety of media, including painting, drawing, sculpture, and photography.


With The Future of Ice, John Zurier manages to reduce each painting to what is essential only, yet he maintains an incredible specificity in each.


Agustín Fernández’s visual innuendos seduce the viewer into lingering on the threshold of visual perception.


Among the 12 artists included in Under the Florida Sun, the painters stood out most to me.


Washington University’s MFA in Visual Art Is Made for Renegades

By Indana