BFA: Bachelor of Fine Arts
Probe the frontiers of art theory, cultural relevance, and the making of art through a wide range of genres, mediums, and techniques.
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The world needs more disruption.
MFA: Master of Fine Arts
Hone the aesthetics and capabilities that will put you at the leading edge of the fine art world.
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Facilities & Equipment
Watkins facilities put all the tools of fine arts fabrication into your hands, including 10 drawing, painting, sculpting, printmaking, and design studios, clay and metal fabrication facilities, and an outdoor work yard and casting area.
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pARTners.
Explorations in collaboration
Faculty:
Full—and part-time faculty
along with professionals
in the field
Full—and part-time faculty
along with professionals
in the field
Moses Williams
Assistant Professor
Moses Williams was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and grew up in Nashville. He received his BFA from Watkins and an MFA from Carnegie-Mellon University. Williams works at the intersection of performance, sculpture, video, and sound to question dominant cultural expectations, institutions, and ideology. He has exhibited and performed throughout the U.S. and Europe and has collaborated with The Nashville Ballet and Alias Chamber Ensemble. His work also includes collaborations with the residents of Unit 2 (the Death Row unit) at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution.
SEE LESSKristi Hargrove
Associate Professor and Chair
BA Fine Arts, Vanderbilt University
MFA Visual Arts, Vermont College of Fine Arts
Kristi Hargrove focuses her studio practice primarily on drawing, but she also investigates other media such as photography, sculpture, and installations. Hargrove has exhibited her work in numerous juried shows and invitational exhibitions across the country. She recently displayed her detailed pencil drawings in the Frist Center’s Metamorphoses exhibition. Hargrove is a member of the Nashville artist collective COOP, a curatorial group committed to presenting challenging, new, or under-represented artists and artworks in the community.
Appointed in 2008
SEE LESSKarla Stinger-Stein
Assistant Professor
MFA, Pratt Institute
Karla Stinger-Stein is an artist and founder of Photosynthesis Projects. Working across a range of media, Stinger-Stein makes site-sensitive work to address ecological vulnerability in the era of the Anthropocene. Her work includes transforming waste into building materials that support native plants for threatened wildlife habitats. Stinger-Stein has participated in group exhibitions at the New Museum's IDEAS CITY Festival, the Dumbo Arts Festival, the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Art in Philadelphia, PA, and Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York. She also has shown her work at Lafayette College, Pratt Institute, New York, the University of Massachusetts, and the Banana Factory in Pennsylvania. Stinger-Stein has participated in the GO! Brooklyn Museum Open Studio Project and received grants from the University of Massachusetts Arts Council and the University of Massachusetts Art and Art History Department. Her prior professional roles include serving as the director of development at the Hunterdon Museum of Art in Clinton, New Jersey and the gallery director for the Student Union Art Gallery at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Robin Paris
Associate Professor
BA Studio Arts, The Evergreen State College
MFA Photography, Savannah College of Art and Design
Paris was born in Atlanta, GA, but at some point, has called Washington, Colorado, and California home. She has been photographing since she was 12-years-old when her father gave her a small Instamatic camera. She has continued the practice, but the cameras have changed. Several of her photographic projects have focused on community members in a small town (Sewanee, TN) and prisoners on Tennessee’s death row (with fellow Watkins professor Tom Williams.) Their work with prisoners has resulted in 11 exhibitions, including one at Apexart in New York. That work has also been featured in The Guardian, El Pais, Hyperallergic, Huffington Post, and many other publications.
Appointed in 2003
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