Otis College Of Art And Design
MFA Fine Arts
Los Angeles, USA
MA
DURATION
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
APPLICATION DEADLINE
EARLIEST START DATE
Sep 2026
STUDY FORMAT
Key Summary
About: The MFA Fine Arts at Otis College is an inclusive, interdisciplinary studio programme in Los Angeles; graduates have studios at the Culver City campus. You’ll get critiques, one-on-one faculty meetings, history/theory seminars, professional practices, visiting-artist lectures, and complete a thesis and exhibition. The optional Art + Social Practice concentration encourages collaboration and social practice skills. Residencies in Paris, Mexico City and Anderson Ranch, plus an Armory fellowship, are for Otis grads and alums.
Career Outcomes: Graduates pursue studio artist, curator, educator, community-engaged artist, or gallery/museum professional roles, applying interdisciplinary practice, critical dialogue, exhibition-making, research, community collaboration and professional sustainability.
The MFA Fine Arts Program is open, inclusive, and interdisciplinary. We are looking for advanced artists who are engaged and committed to exploring an art practice in its various forms, traditions, and contexts. We emphasize interdisciplinary critical dialogue and lifelong learning within our intimate community. Our Art + Social Practice emphasis is an optional concentration that explores and encourages collaboration and builds skills to work in the social field.
You will be simultaneously supported and challenged. In Critique, you will learn to discuss your own and others’ work and attempt to locate it within wider cultural debates. Individual studio meetings with faculty will offer you one-on-one conversations on work in progress, ideas, readings, or plans. In Art History and Theory seminars, you will read, write, discuss, and consider various histories, methodologies, and frames of thought. Professional Practices will prepare you to sustain a lifelong practice. Our Visiting Artist Lecture Series brings distinguished artists, curators, and thinkers into close dialogue with students. Studies culminate in a written thesis and final MFA exhibition.
All full-time graduates work in their own individual studios located at the graduate campus in Culver City. Residencies in Paris, Mexico City, and Anderson Ranch in Colorado are exclusively reserved for Otis graduate students and alums. A fellowship with the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena is also available to Otis graduates.
