VCUarts Painting + Printmaking

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VCUarts Painting + Printmaking

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The graduate program is based on intensive studio practice at an advanced level in the areas of painting, drawing, printmaking, and digital media.

The program is highly selective and is presently limited to fifteen participants. Our graduate program was recently ranked among the top ten best graduate painting programs in the country by US News and World Report. This ranking is based on the professional reputation of our faculty and on the outstanding accomplishments of the Department’s alumni and alumnae.

10/09/2026

The Department of Fine Arts is excited to welcome artist Khaled Jarrar for an upcoming visiting artist lecture!

🗓️ October 21st
⏰ 12:30 PM
📍 VCU Student Commons Theater (907 Floyd Ave.)

Khaled Jarrar was born and raised in Jenin-Ramallah, occupied Palestine, and currently lives in NYC. Khaled Jarrar is an artist whose career transitioned from the military discipline to a subversive art practice. His work is deeply rooted in his personal history and the lived reality of the West Bank. Jarrar uses diverse mediums including photography, sculpture, and performance art to highlight the complexities of life under occupation and the weight of sovereign identity. One of his projects includes upcycled concrete sculptures made by physically chiseling fragments from the apartheid wall and morphing them into pop art objects, to purchasing a land with 56 olive trees, all of which reclaim cultural endurance as a means of liberation, liberating the land (Ardh) from toxic synthetic fertilizers using black goat manure.

To learn more about this lecture and our upcoming visiting artist, follow the link in our bio! 🔗

VCUarts Khaled Jarrar

09/28/2026

Join us in celebrating the winners of The Capital Prize Round 2! Congratulations to you all!

🥇The award for First Place goes to Rebecca Karabin (B.F.A. ‘25) with the piece:

(Slide 1)
Vitreous Waltz, 2025
Oil on canvas

🥈The award for Second Place goes to Oscar Capmos-Valle (B.F.A. ‘25) with the piece:

(Slide 2)
Recorte De Alas, 2025
Oil paint and Brown Glass on a Wooden Panel

🥉The award for Third Place goes to Diana Antohe (M.F.A. ‘19) with the piece:

(Slide 3)
Ureche: Cercei (Ear, Earrings), 2024
Oil on canvas

Congrats to all our participants accepted into Round 2!

• Alumni in show •
Rebecca Karabin (B.F.A. ’25)
Oscar Campos-Valle (B.F.A. ’25)
Diana Antohe (M.F.A. ’19)
Helen Binder (B.F.A.’21)
Naomi Chung (B.F.A.’98)
Frances Collum (B.F.A.’19)
Dragana Crnjak (M.F.A.’04)
Fiona Dumais (B.F.A.’25)
Olivia Gibian (B.F.A.’11)
Nathan Hosmer Nevarez (B.F.A.’24)
Kris Iden (B.F.A.’88, M.F.A.’91)
Jaraz Jenkins (B.F.A.’18)
Piper Johnson (B.F.A.’24)
Khoi Le (B.F.A.’23)
Elise Leake (B.F.A.’25)
Sophia Polizzi, current M.A.E. student (B.F.A.’24)
Amelia Rafle (B.F.A.’21)
Matthew Rea (B.F.A.’14)
Jill Zevenbergen (M.F.A.’09)

The Capital Prize and accompanying juried exhibition series is made possible through a partnership between VCUarts and Capital Square, offering Painting and Printmaking alumni the opportunity to exhibit their work in Capital Square’s new Chasen building in Scott’s Addition.
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🔗 Click the link in our bio to read more about our talented winners and The Capital Prize!

08/31/2026

The Department of Fine Arts is excited to welcome artist Erin Jane Nelson for our first visiting artist lecture of the fall semester! 🍃

🗓️ September 14th, 2026
⏰ 12:30 PM
📍 Grace Street Theater (934 W. Grace St.)

Erin Jane Nelson is an interdisciplinary artist based in Santa Fe, NM. Her practice is grounded in photography sourced from her personal archive of found and original images. Raised—and later based—in the American South, Nelson travels throughout the region to photograph her surroundings and lived experiences. She intuitively merges these images onto unexpected support structures—including silk, hand-crafted quilts, panels, and ceramic inspired by vernacular craft objects and the history of collage—their multiple references engaging the nuanced anxiety, conflict, and humor of the present and immediate future. Her work plays with the hierarchies of value, class, and taste in contemporary culture, often embracing femme cuteness as a potent symbolic tool. Nelson’s newest works have expanded to include ceramic cameras that the artist creates herself and uses to capture landscape photographs that further emphasize the material and conceptual foundation of her practice.

To learn more about this lecture and our upcoming visiting artist, follow the link in our bio! 🔗

VCUarts Erin Jane Nelson

07/21/2026

Many students and alumni of the Department of Fine Arts representing the programs of Painting and Printmaking and Craft and Material Studies are currently featured in the latest EMERGE exhibition at the Bond Millen Gallery, EMERGE X!

EMERGE is a juried, invitational exhibition that highlights emerging artists currently in school, recently graduated, or committed to personal artistic pursuits. As an avenue for experience in the fine art market, EMERGE offers education in gallery presentation and practices. From over 100 submissions, 24 artists were selected!

Congratulations to Painting and Printmaking program MFA Candidates Katy Layman and Madaline Gardner, alumni Daša Kulikova (M.F.A. ‘26), Helen Trout (B.F.A. ‘26), Cory Caulfield (B.F.A. ‘26), Anna Perdue (B.F.A. ‘26), and Madeleine Landaker (B.F.A. ‘24), and Craft and Material Studies program alumni Megan Koeppel (M.F.A. ‘26) and Ashton Nelson (B.F.A. ‘26)!

EMERGE X is on display at the Bond Millen Gallery (5601 Cary Street Rd.) until July 25th!

VCUarts Bond Millen Gallery

07/15/2026

The Department of Fine Arts is now hiring for a variety of Federal Work Study Positions for the 2026-27 academic year! 🐏☀️

These positions include roles such as Studio Monitors, AV Technician, Fine Arts Office Assistant, Social Media and Communications Assistant, and Equipment Checkout Assistant! All positions require that applicants have been awarded 2026-2027 Federal Work-Study and have accepted their financial aid via eServices before submitting applications.

Each opportunity is now available on Handshake! Applications will begin to be reviewed by late July/early August. These positions are open to ALL VCU students, but some positions have preferred qualifications.

For more information on these openings, check out The Lamp Post by following the link in our bio! 🔗

VCUarts

05/21/2026

Undergraduate Painting + Printmaking student Zakari Yonkers was recently featured in a VCU News article after their acceptance into the latest GLAAD Equity in Media and Entertainment Initiative cohort! 🎉

GLAAD is a non-profit organization that was founded in 1985 to focus on LGBTQ+ advocacy and cultural change, and offers national and local programs that advance LGBTQ+ acceptance. GLAAD’s Equity in Media and Entertainment Initiative (EMEI) is a program designed to address the gap in equitable representation among various entertainment media, particularly in regards to Black LGBTQ+ storytellers and individuals living with HIV. This year, the program is highlighting visual artists!

As part of the accepted cohort, Zakari will be participating in an exhibition opening in June in New York City. For their project featured in the exhibition, Zakari will be interviewing four individuals to highlight their careers and identities as Black, q***r artists.

“In the final exhibition, I plan to have some of the audio from the interviews playing in the background. I want it to feel like an immersive space and experience.”

Congratulations, Zakari, on this momentous achievement!

To read the full article, follow the link our bio! 🔗

05/08/2026

Congratulations to our Painting + Printmaking Class of 2026! 🎓⭐

To celebrate our recent graduates, let’s look at some of the many works on display from this year’s BFA Senior Capstone at The Anderson gallery! As part of Round Two, the BFA Senior Capstone showcased our Class of 2026 PAPR students’ final show, “I meant to tell you…” as a culmination of their years of study with us. 💛

We wish all of our new alumni all of the very best in their future endeavors, and we look forward to all that you will create next!

04/27/2026

Painting + Printmaking is excited to welcome Allison Glenn for our final visiting scholar lecture of the semester! This lecture is happening May 1st at 9:30 AM and will be hosted in Sculpture Crit Room 3 on the first floor of the Murry N. DePillars Building (1000 W. Broad St).

Allison Glenn is a New York-based curator and writer focusing on the intersection of art and public space, through biennials, special projects, public art, & major new commissions by a wide range of contemporary artists. For over fifteen years, Glenn has been devoted to realizing ambitious and experimental exhibitions and site-specific artist projects with artists working across the globe. She is Curator of the 2026 Toronto Biennial of Art, and Curator of Espacio Central, as part of the CARA Platform.

To learn more about our upcoming visiting scholar, follow the link in our bio! 🔗

04/17/2026

Meet the MFA Candidate: Trang Huynh 🏠

Trang Huynh is an emerging mixed-media artist from Vietnam, currently based in Richmond, VA. She earned her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, where she received several awards, including the Creative Vision Award, Starr Foundation Scholarship, and Distinguished International Award. Her work has been featured in both solo and group exhibitions, including Artscape B24 in Baltimore, MD, and Asia in Maryland in Towson, MD. She is currently completing a Master’s degree in Painting and Printmaking at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Inspired by historical narratives and her personal experiences as part of the Vietnamese post-war generation, Trang’s work delves into themes of inherited trauma, colonial oppression, and the enduring capacity for healing and love. Through a combination of oil painting, printmaking, collage, and photo transfer, she creates densely layered compositions that merge figurative imagery with settings drawn from memories, inviting viewers into deeply emotive and thought-provoking spaces.

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Trang will be participating in the upcoming 2026 MFA Candidacy Exhibition, “Late Breaking”, opening at The Anderson gallery tonight at 5 PM! On view until April 25th, “Late Breaking” will feature the work of 21 first-year graduates across VCUarts!

To learn more about this upcoming exhibition, follow the link in our bio! 🔗

04/15/2026

Meet the MFA Candidate: Mehreen Fatima ✉️

In her work, Mehreen Fatima processes ideas of memory, desire, and grief through assemblage, collage, and text. She brings imaginary worlds into existence, driven by her personal lived experiences of struggling with bodily autonomy during her adolescent years. In these worlds, she directs the audience towards experiencing and becoming a participant within the physical manifestation of the love she wants to give and receive.

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Mehreen will be participating in the upcoming 2026 MFA Candidacy Exhibition, “Late Breaking”, opening at The Anderson gallery on April 17th at 5 PM! On view until April 25th, “Late Breaking” will feature the work of 21 first-year graduates across VCUarts!

To learn more about this upcoming exhibition, follow the link in our bio! 🔗

Address

1000 W Broad Street
Richmond, VA
23284

Telephone

+18048281696

Website

http://arts.vcu.edu/paintingprintmaking

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