Armando Román

This course provides students with the opportunity to blend traditional techniques with cutting-edge digital methods, as they experiment with a range of media, including drawing, sculpture, image transfer, collage, laser cutting, and 3D printing. Begin with exciting mini-projects and hands-on demonstrations to spark your imagination and get ideas flowing, then refine concepts through engaging discussions before completing a final project that reflects your unique style and interests. Additionally, students will discover the latest trends in art, featuring inspiring work from contemporary artists who are pushing boundaries today.

In this hands-on studio course, students will develop new works of art to enhance their portfolios for upcoming college applications and select, revise, and edit their existing works. Through dynamic workshops and one-on-one meetings with SAIC faculty and admissions staff, students will discover the most effective way to document and organize their work and represent their unique points of view as artists to the colleges of their choice. This course also emphasizes studio time and faculty support in creating final projects to enhance students' overall portfolio presentation. Additional resources, such as artist presentations and visits to the Art Institute of Chicago and other cultural institutions, supplement the course curriculum.

Who has the privilege to narrate our lives? What names are placed upon us¿and which ones do we reclaim? This course examines how Latino artists resist systemic racism, anti-immigrant policies, voter suppression, erasure, and violence, using art to testify to struggle and imagine futures beyond dispossession. We will study artists such as Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Coco Fusco, Yvette Mayorga, and Julio Torres, while also considering solidarities across Black, Indigenous, Asian diasporic, and queer communities. Students will create three works informed by research, dialogue, and lived experience. Open to all committed to exploring art, politics, and identity.