Through courses, exhibitions, lectures, and public programs, the Department of Art at Sacramento State provides an environment in which students become the next generation of artists, scholars, and educators. The department also serves the larger university student population through a robust series of introductory courses geared towards a lifelong appreciation of the arts. The Department's curriculum is global in scope, with programs that are oriented towards creativity and critical thinking. Students make and study art through art education, art history, and studio art: ceramics, new media art, painting, printmaking, sculpture, and interdisciplinary media.
New ASL Building
A 17-million-dollar state of the art new Art Sculpture Lab facility will open in September 2024, to house the Painting, Drawing, and Sculpture areas, the graduate studios for our MFA program, and a variety of workshop spaces. The new art building, paired with our recently elevated studio art programs - the Bachelor and Master of Fine Arts degrees - positions Sacramento State as Northern California’s destination for an accredited and equitable arts education. The Art Department is fundraising for an endowment which will allow us to provide equitable access to state-of-the-art facilities, technology, and equipment at ASL long into the future. Your donations will also support a variety of creative programs, such as rotating sculpture exhibits in the new outdoor sculpture garden; student exhibitions in the common area; and scholarships for graduate students in our new MFA program. Click here for more information.
Visiting Artist Program
We launched the Art Department’s Visiting Artist Program on the 2021 Day of Giving. With the money raised, we were able to inaugurate the program with a fabulous visiting artist opportunity: in Fall 2022 three Sacramento artists worked in the Else Gallery for a month, creating an ever-changing, interactive and multi-sensory exhibition. During their time in the gallery, the artists met with individual students and classes, and interacted with members of the campus community. In 2023 the Art Department partnered with the University Library Gallery so that students in our BFA and MFA program could meet with visiting artists for one-on-one critiques. In the 2024/5 academic year, the Visiting Artist Program will expand to support a multi-media artist installation in the Art Department Galleries, with the artist in dialog as they’re creating the installation, and opportunities for individual critiques with students. A donation to this fund supports students having direct experiences with professional artists in workshops, studio critiques, lectures, and exhibition contexts.
