Student wearing gloves, goggles and a heavy coat sliding a brick into a ceramics kiln that has flames rising out of a vent hole.

Visual Arts Degree Programs

Visualize your future...

Make what matters. Express yourself. Shape what comes next.

At Penn State, your ideas have room to grow. Explore new ways of thinking and making as you develop your creative voice, sharpen your skills, and turn imagination into work that can change how people see and experience the world.

From traditional studio practices to digital media, photography, art history, and art education, you’ll learn by doing in a creative community built for exploration.

You have something to say. Create it here.

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Undergraduate Design Programs

Visual Arts Minors + Certificates

Alumni Spotlight

Visual Arts

Headshot of

alumni spotlight

Meliza Fermin

Integrative Arts, B.A. 2004

Meliza Fermin is an award-winning visual effects artist across television and film genres. She won an Emmy for Outstanding Visual Effects for her work on the television show Heroes, and Emmy certificates for her contributions to The Battle of Gettysburg and American Horror Story. Currently, Meliza works at Fuse FX as a senior digital matte painter on shows such as American Horror Story and Timeless.

www.melizafermin.com

A Visual Feast...

Close-up of two hands using a 3-d printing pen to build a cube shape out of printed filament
A shower of sparks obscures a student using a grinder to refine a metal sculpture in a workshop
Overhead view of a group of children surrounding a bright blue tub filled with liquid; one student has arms outstretched, holding a copper bowl of what appears to be intense blue dye.
Bright yellow dye being swirled in a beaker by someone wearing blue nitrile lab gloves
A postage stamp design with a mouse standing on 2 legs in a red and black dress holding flowers.
Student in an art gallery looking up at a bright, abstract triptych with deep yellows, oranges, and grey-black colors
Guests looking at a series of student artwork displayed on a gallery wall during the undergraduate juried show at Zoller Gallery.
The front and back of a magazine titled "Growing Greener"
A student holds a small 3D‑pen sculpture made of white and red filament while shaping it with a handheld 3D printing pen.
A wealth of student artwork featured in the Zoller Gallery
Blue-wax-drip-coverd figure on a pedestal in the foreground, with brightly colored, but focus-blurred paintings and framed artworks hung on a wall in the background.
"I Sleep Alone" artwork. 10’ x 12’ x 10’ Bone-dry clay, wet clay, wood, fabric, ceramic, shells, teabags, red-iron oxide wash, my body 2023
"I Didn’t Really Sleep" artwork. 15’ x 15’ x 15’ clay, ceramic, fabric, plants, fire, water, my body
A collection of ceramics, including pitchers, mugs, bowls and vases displayed in a booth at the Arts Festival. All artwork created by School of Visual Arts students.
Detail image of the ear, presented frontally. Vein-like formations radiate from a large, round, dark opening just off-center to the right. The edges of the ear are irregular and undulating, like the leaf of the elephant ear plant.