USF School of Art & Art History

USF School of Art & Art History We emphatically embrace social diversity and respect for the individual; we encourage a sense of citizenship and a global and historical self-location.

The School of Art & Art History at the University of South Florida fosters a dynamic environment of research, creativity, and experimentation within the College of Design, Art, and Performance. We, the members of the University of South Florida School of Art and Art History, recognize the power of images to construct and reflect the shared consciousness of a culture. We therefore see our mission a

s the study of visual culture, past and present, in order to understand how images can illuminate and expand, or conceal and limit the worlds they represent; and the creation of art that explores actual, lived life and provides alternative visions for that life. We value the shared affective and intellectual community life within which art is produced and experienced: the internal communities of the School and the University; the collaborative and interdependent communities crossing art media, art practice, theory and history; and our local and regional communities with which we seek interaction. We seek to provide a challenging learning environment of research, creativity and experimentation; we emphasize engaged, critical thinking. We investigate new media and technologies, as well as traditional approaches. Finally, we recognize that example is the best teacher and strive through our own creative research to embody the values we wish to impart.

The School of Art & Art History is pleased to announce that artist and educator William Downs will join SAAH this fall a...
05/08/2026

The School of Art & Art History is pleased to announce that artist and educator William Downs will join SAAH this fall as Assistant Professor of Drawing. .studio

Downs is an accomplished artist whose work explores themes of ambiguity, anxiety, and the human body in motion. He received his BFA from the Atlanta College of Art and Design and his MFA from the Mount Royal School of Art at MICA. His honors include Artadia, the Nellie Mae Rowe Fellowship at Hambidge, and the Working Artist Project at MOCA Georgia.

His work has been exhibited at institutions including the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, the Zuckerman Museum of Art, the International Print Center New York, and the USF Contemporary Art Museum, among many others. His work is also held in major permanent collections including the High Museum of Art, the Birmingham Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian.

Please join us in welcoming William Downs to the School of Art & Art History. We are excited for the energy, insight, and experience he will bring to our students and community.

04/17/2026

When our academic advisor sees herself in the work and has a Stuart Smalley moment ...

"Believe in Yourself"
Punch Rueangaram, senior graphic design student

This work is currently on view in Harbor Hall Gallery as part of the Graphic Arts Senior Show.

ArtHouse XXVI is TONIGHT — step inside FAH 105 ⚡️Meet Ryan Scout McConnell, a BFA student in our School of Art & Art His...
04/03/2026

ArtHouse XXVI is TONIGHT — step inside FAH 105 ⚡️

Meet Ryan Scout McConnell, a BFA student in our School of Art & Art History, whose work will be on view during open studios this evening.

Ryan’s practice uses multimedia printmaking to reflect on how digital documentation and constant surveillance shape—and distort—our collective reality. His recent work centers on mezzotint, an antiquated intaglio process known for its rich, smooth tonal range. He also incorporates screenprinting, embossment, etching, wood, metal, and technology to create works that blur the line between sculpture and printmaking.

While you’re there, don’t miss Gallery 105, a student-led gallery within the mixed media studios where artists will be selling a dynamic range of works throughout the night.

Come through, explore the studios, and support our students 🖤

ContemporaryArt

We’re counting down to ArtHouse XXVI with a look inside our student studios.This spotlight features Brandin Vance (BFA ...
04/02/2026

We’re counting down to ArtHouse XXVI with a look inside our student studios.

This spotlight features Brandin Vance (BFA ’26), whose work is currently on view in The Box, a small gallery space next to Ceramics/Sculpture in FAH.

"What Remains in the Heat" presents a landscape where time feels both distant and unresolved. A sewn white cattle head rests within a mound of sand, overtaken by a trail and cluster of 3D-printed ants, while two black sewn leather cacti and white sewn cacti bulbs stand as unfamiliar sentinels. Bathed in an unnatural, saturated glow, the scene resists clear placement—hovering between past and future, reality and fabrication.

The work reflects on what endures: what is left behind, what persists, and what transforms under pressure.

Brandin’s work explores memory, its loss, and the unstable spaces in between. Shaped by fragmented early recollections and experiences of solitude, his practice is driven by a desire to navigate what cannot be fully accessed or clearly defined. Rather than presenting fixed narratives, his work holds space for ambiguity, reflecting the way memory shifts, fades, and reforms over time.

Through an intuitive and process-based approach, Brandin works with sewn textiles, wood, video, and light to translate these ideas into physical form. These materials allow him to build immersive environments that prioritize feeling over explanation, where presence, absence, and perception intersect. By engaging the viewer within these spaces, his work invites personal interpretation, encouraging each individual to confront what remains just out of reach.

Rather than offering resolution, the piece invites uncertainty. It asks the viewer to consider whether this is a memory, a projection, or something entirely outside of our world—and to question what, if anything, can truly remain.

Stop by The Box to experience the work, and visit Brandin’s studio in the Honors 3D Studio (FAH 140–141) during ArtHouse XXVI.

We look forward to seeing you tomorrow!

USF turns 70 this year, and Ybor is celebrating its 140th anniversary. Although these milestones are decades apart, thei...
04/01/2026

USF turns 70 this year, and Ybor is celebrating its 140th anniversary.

Although these milestones are decades apart, their art history remains deeply connected.

The connection continues today with Ybor's Reverb Gallery, which is leased by USF and operated by master of fine arts students.

Read how Ybor's revival started with USF artists.
https://www.usf.edu/arts/index.aspx

Mike Cannata (b. 1996) from Chicago, IL is a multimedia artist and MFA candidate in the USF School of Art & Art History ...
04/01/2026

Mike Cannata (b. 1996) from Chicago, IL is a multimedia artist and MFA candidate in the USF School of Art & Art History who works in large-scale painting, sculpture, installation, and ceramics. He has been working primarily in ceramics over the past 10 years, creating larger-than-life sculptures and utilizing oozing and expanding glaze concoctions. Cannata creates narrative through his gestural and emotive paintings and sculptures.

Cannata received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from The New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University (Alfred, NY). From 2021 to 2023, Cannata took part in a long-term residency program at the Morean Center for Clay (St. Petersburg, FL). In 2020, Cannata participated in two residency programs at Guldagergaard International Ceramic Research Center (Skaelskor, Denmark). His artwork has been exhibited throughout the U.S. and internationally in Denmark, Russia, South Korea, and Romania. Cantata’s work has been shown in numerous group and solo exhibitions, including in the U.S. Capitol Building (Washington DC), The Chihuly Collection (St. Petersburg, FL), and the Museum of Nonconformist Art (St. Petersburg, Russia). This winter, he exhibited at the Satellite Art Show (Miami, FL) during Miami Art Week. In the coming months, he will participate in Pathways, an exhibition at the Rollins Museum of Art (Winter Park, FL) and the University of Central Florida Art Gallery (Orlando, FL).

Cannata's work will be on view as part of Things Don't Seem the Same, our 2026 MFA thesis exhibition, opening Friday, April 3, 7:00 - 9:00 PM EST.

Congratulations, ! 🎉

Studio portrait by 📸

Through self-portraiture that foregrounds pleasure, vulnerability, and connection, Darlene Gold’s (MFA Candidate in the ...
04/01/2026

Through self-portraiture that foregrounds pleasure, vulnerability, and connection, Darlene Gold’s (MFA Candidate in the USF School of Art & Art History) photography challenges cultural assumptions about age, sexuality, and female visibility. Her self-portraits position the aging female body as an active subject of desire. She extends this inquiry through performance and image-text works that explore erotic self-disclosure as both risk and agency.

Her work has been recognized in juried exhibitions including the Carolyn M. Wilson Gallery: 48th & 46th Annual Juried Student Art Exhibitions; Image City’s Magic of Light Exhibition, Rochester NY; State of the Art Gallery’s 32nd & 31st Juried Photography Exhibitions, Ithaca NY; and Schweinfurth Art Center’s Made In New York (MINY) Auburn, NY. Gold’s photography awards include: Judge’s Pick at State of the Art Gallery’s 32nd Juried Photography Exhibition; “Top Honor Prize,” WSKG’s TV Portraits and Dreams 2021 Photography Challenge. Video and photography-text performance pieces include: Night Reading for Foxes, featured in the award-winning documentary: Liminal Worlds, and Never Before Has a Window Seemed So Much Like an Ear: for Gary Sczerbaniewicz’s Tower and the Shard, performed at SUNY Dowd Gallery, Cortland NY.

After a career as a college professor and creative writer in New York, Gold (b. 1964) left her tenured position to pursue studio art at the University of South Florida, deepening her commitment to image-based practice. Gold holds degrees in English and Creative Writing (BA, Boston University; MFA, Columbia University; PhD, Binghamton University), which inform her interdisciplinary approach to image and text.

Gold's work will be on view as part of Things Don't Seem the Same, our 2026 MFA Thesis exhibition, opening Friday, April 3, 7:00 - 9:00 PM EST.

Congratulations, ! 🎉

Studio portrait by 📸

Born in Oklahoma in 1984 and raised across Texas and the American South, Atia Shafie’s (MFA candidate in the USF School ...
04/01/2026

Born in Oklahoma in 1984 and raised across Texas and the American South, Atia Shafie’s (MFA candidate in the USF School of Art & Art History) childhood shifted dramatically in the mid-1990s when, at the age of ten, she migrated with her family to Iran.

The decade she spent there—negotiating new cultural codes while holding onto the remnants of another life—became the foundation of her artistic sensibility. Returning to the United States in 2005, she rebuilt her life independently. She pursued art studies, moving from graphic design to painting before ultimately finding her voice in sculpture and completing her BFA in Los Angeles, CA.

Working through painting, collage, and layered material processes, Shafie treats her gathered fragments as active participants—both witnesses and storytellers. The paper scraps, fabric remnants, dirt, resin, and domestic fragments she collects spark a dialogue with the objects and symbols in which people place faith—personal, cultural, and collective. Her compositions form a tangible, physical cacophony, reflecting the layered tensions between the individual and society, and between memory and myth.

Rooted in the complexities of migration and hybrid identity, her practice operates as an archaeology of personal and cultural history. Through cycles of accumulation and erasure, she constructs dense, stratified surfaces that emulate the fragile, shifting nature of recollection. In merging painterly sensibilities with sculptural materiality, Shafie maps the emotional terrain of living between languages, geographies, and histories—creating works that ask viewers to look closely, dig deeper, and confront the many-layered realities that shape who we become.

Shafie's work will be on view as part of Things Don't Seem the Same, our 2026 MFA Thesis exhibition, opening Friday, April 3, 7:00 - 9:00 PM EST.

Congratulations, ! 🎉

Studio portrait by 📸

Diana Sosnowska (b. 1995) is a Polish-Italian visual artist and MFA Candidate in the USF School of Art & Art History wor...
04/01/2026

Diana Sosnowska (b. 1995) is a Polish-Italian visual artist and MFA Candidate in the USF School of Art & Art History working between Florida and Italy. She holds a BA in Photography from Robert Gordon University, Scotland.

Her practice investigates how institutional regimes and scientific knowledge systems both record and construct knowledge. Through the manipulation of institutional, governmental, and vernacular archives, staged photography, and sculptural interventions, Sosnowska challenges dominant understandings of history and memory, exploring the spaces where truth and fiction converge.

Her work has been exhibited in juried group exhibitions at The Bridge and Tunnel Gallery (New York, NY), Le Stanze della Fotografia (Venice, Italy), and Photofusion (London, UK), and in solo exhibitions at Studies in Photography (Edinburgh, UK) and the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts (Tampa, FL). She is a recipient of the British Journal of Photography’s Female in Focus Award (2022) and the SPE Student Award for Innovations in Imaging (2026).

Sosnowska's work will be on view as part of Things Don't Seem the Same, our 2026 MFA Thesis exhibition, opening Friday, April 3, 7:00 - 9:00 PM EST.

Congratulations, ! 🎉

Studio portrait by 📸

12/12/2025

USF School of Art & Art History alum .mart1nez discusses her work and reflects on her experience in the MFA program. Emily's practice speaks to the critical engagement, material exploration, and sustained inquiry that shape our graduate community. This work is currently on view in Sarasota, Florida, as part of the Nuestro Vaivén exhibition.

🎥Video by , MFA alum and current USF SAAH instructor.

✨Applications to the USF SAAH MFA program are now open.

🔗 Learn more via the link in our bio.

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