Visual and Digital Arts
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Program Overview
Humber’s Visual and Digital Arts diploma program offers you the opportunity to develop a well-rounded skillset applicable to a broad range of visual arts disciplines. At the Art Commons, Humber’s dedicated studio facilities, you will learn to plan and produce effective visual material and facilitate modes of interactive expression and communication.
Fusing traditional media and current digital tools, including Adobe Creative Cloud, you will develop skills in painting, drawing, illustration, digital art, photography, video, installation and interactive art. While honing your creative potential and expanding your artistic network, you will gain knowledge about anatomy, colour, composition, figurative expressions, art history and social collaboration. Through in-studio practice and special topics courses, you will ideate and collaborate on critical issues in art and society including a range of social justice, access and equity-oriented projects. Throughout the program, you will participate in collaborative, interdisciplinary projects with your peers and industry partners while gaining opportunities to exhibit your work, take part in special projects and join in critiques. With its focus on experiential learning and critical thinking, this program is an excellent launching point for more advanced creative pursuits.
The Humber Advantage
As a Humber student, you have the chance to apply for a 16-week summer fellowship with the Centre for Creative Business Innovation and Humber Galleries. As a fellow, you'll work with industry professionals and an interdisciplinary team of your peers to create multidisciplinary experiences from music, film, media, 3D objects, and more — all while getting paid!
The newly constructed Humber Art Commons was designed to foster creative collaboration and experimentation. The flexible space allows Art Foundation students to conceptualize, create, and exhibit work all in the same place.
Launched as a live lab, the Art Commons building provides students with a creative space to explore and discover new techniques. Located at Lakeshore Campus on Lakeshore Blvd, the building acts as a hub for art students. The open concept allows for a modern studio space flooded by natural light. The space has been modelled on the general concept of transformability. Four large multi-purpose rooms on two floors can be turned into any kind of collaborative space depending on need.
Take a 360 degree tour!
For mobile and tablet users, open the video in the YouTube app. For optimal viewing experience use Firefox or Chrome. Currently Safari does not support 360 videos.
Watch the video and discover how Noni Kaur inspires her students to think outside the box and create more than what they think they are capable of.
Watch the video to find out how Humber prepared Mac for the professional aspects of being an artist.
Watch the video to discover how the Visual and Digital Arts program at Humber helps students explore their creativity and express their ideas.
Watch the video to see how the In Situ event was an immersive and interactive evening that showcased music, photography, performance, dance, improv, mime, spoken word, mural and graffiti art, installation art, design and more by some of the GTA’s best emerging artists!
Expert Faculty
Steven Cober
Steve Cober is a multidisciplinary designer and technologist. With a background in media arts, his experience spans product, experience, environmental and game design for clients such as Kellogg's, Visa, Nintendo and Disney. Steve co-founded Magic Pony, a creative hybrid synthesizing the signature elements of a retail store, exhibition space, and design studio to create a cultural hub and creative incubator in Toronto. In partnership with artists, corporations and cultural institutions, Magic Pony collaborated on over 100 art exhibitions, culminating with This Is Not a Toy, a retrospective of designer toy culture co-curated by Pharrell Williams. Most recently, he joined Secret Location as creative director for Waking Wonderland, a large-scale immersive entertainment project based on the works of Lewis Carroll.
His research explores the intersection of emergent narrative, participatory art and innovations in digital-physical technologies. He lectures in entrepreneurship, illustration, interactive design, using prototyping and ideation as the catalyst for learning and collaboration.
Marc Colangelo
Marc Colangelo is a visual artist specializing in representational works of portraiture, figurative compositions and dream imagery. Areas of instruction and expertise are figure drawing and painting, artistic anatomy, and composition.
Noni Kaur
Noni Kaur is an award-winning international contemporary artist and educator based in Toronto, Canada. As a Singaporean woman of Punjabi descent, her identity is by its own nature intersectional. The works she creates explore her cultural history and how particular materials are adapted or transformed through use in different spaces/environments. Her installations are immersive, multi-sensory experiences that bridge the gaps between gender, culture, the body, and the non-human world.
Cole Swanson
Cole Swanson (BA Studio Art, MA Art History) is an artist and educator based in Toronto, Canada. He has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions across Canada and throughout international venues in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. He is a two-time national fellowship winner through the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute for his research on miniature painting, fresco, and natural pigment production in Jaipur, India. His current artistic practice includes a multidisciplinary study of the complex relationships shared between humans and other organisms. Working in painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, and sound art, Swanson has created exhibitions in partnerships with scientists, ecologists, community groups, and social activists in order to confront critical questions in art, nature, and society today.
Swanson has performed many professional roles within the arts and has held positions in curatorial work, museum and gallery administration, and post-secondary education. As full-time professor and program co-ordinator for the Art Foundation and Visual & Digital Arts programs at Humber College, Swanson has developed and taught courses in painting, material methods, art history, collaborative and experimental art, and professional practice. Alongside Professor Anne Zbitnew, Swanson is a founding member of Art in Access, a research initiative that seeks to expand opportunities for community members faced with physical, social, and cultural barriers to art education. Swanson also held sessional teaching positions in the Faculty of Art, Ontario College of Art and Design University in painting, colour theory, and material processes.
Swanson has appeared as author and subject of numerous publications and catalogues, and has guest lectured at academic and arts institutions throughout Canada and abroad. He has been featured in print, video, and academic publications, and his recent work on Toronto's double-crested cormorant colony was profiled on The Nature of Things with David Suzuki (2020).
Swanson has received financial support from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council, the Musagetes Foundation, and the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute. His work appears in private and public collections throughout Canada.
Carolyne Topdjian
Carolyne Topdjian is an interdisciplinary writer and educator whose work explores existential issues of aesthetics, consciousness, and identity. With a background in visual art theory and practice, she received her PhD in Social and Political Thought from York University and has since published numerous scholarly essays and stories. Her latest novel, The Hitman’s Daughter, is forthcoming from Agora Books in January 2022. You can find her at carolynetopdjian.com.
Tobias Williams
Tobias Williams is an artist and educator based in Toronto, Canada. He holds an MFA from York University. He recently completed an educational residency with the Toronto Public Library as part of the Innovator-in-Residence program and worked with STYLY VR as the head lecturer of the 2022 NEWVIEW SCHOOL in Toronto. Currently Tobias works as an instructor at OCAD U and Humber College. His work has been shown both locally and internationally including exhibitions at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin as part of Transmediale, Material Art Fair in Mexico City, The Brandscape in Toronto and the AGM in Mississauga.
Tobias’s art and research practice uses XR, 3D rendering and animation to explore the relationship between art, society and technology. Recent projects of his have focused on topics such as the history of Blockchain, the influence of platform based algorithms on contemporary visual culture and the ontology of virtual art spaces.
Study Abroad
Propel your resume and life story to the next level by taking advantage of the global opportunities offered at Humber. Gain academic credit, develop highly valued employability skills, and create connections with people from all over the world through our many offerings: Summer Abroad, Semester Exchange, Humber Global Summer School, and many other opportunities!
To learn more, please visit Humber Global, or contact Jennifer Cleary at Jennifer.Cleary@humber.ca.
Your Career
Although the Information Age has created an explosion of career opportunities for visual and digital artists, the competition is keen. It is an exciting career that encompasses creativity, challenges, new insights and dynamic ways of critical thinking. But employers agree that professional drawing and painting skills reinforced with fine art principles and critical-thinking skills will distinguish an applicant from the crowd.
Enjoy exciting entry-level positions in the visual, graphic and media arts industry with your newly acquired skillset. Use your creative and technical skills as an illustrator, contemporary artist, concept artist, advertising layout artist, storyboard artist, digital illustrator, visualizer, artist representative, gallery or artist supply assistant, graphic artist, photographer’s assistant, or art teaching assistant. Be self-employed as a freelance artist, illustrator or art instructor in an arts and crafts association or organization. Many of our graduates also pursue higher education within media studies and the visual arts, given that they will be equipped with a comprehensive portfolio to showcase their acquired skills.
Related Programs
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Program Availability
| START | DELIVERY | LOCATION | STATUS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 2025 | Lakeshore | Open |
| START | DELIVERY | LOCATION | STATUS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 2025 | Lakeshore | Open |
Humber is a publicly funded institution. International students graduating from a PGWP Eligible program at Humber are eligible to apply for a Post-Graduation Work Permit.
International students in Canada could be eligible for an automatic scholarship*. Apply now!
Check out the step-by-step Admissions Road Map for helpful information and additional resources.
| START | DELIVERY | LOCATION | STATUS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 2025 | Lakeshore | Open |
Humber is a publicly funded institution. International students graduating from a PGWP Eligible program at Humber are eligible to apply for a Post-Graduation Work Permit.
International applicants outside of Canada can apply through Humber International. Check out the step-by-step Admissions Road Map for helpful information and additional resources.
Upcoming Recruitment Events
News Feed
Marc Colangelo on the Impact of Contemporary Art and Design at Dutch Design Week
Wed, February 12, 2025
In October 2024, I led a group of Humber students to Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven, where they explored contemporary art and design and collaborated with design students from Fontys University.
The faculty-led international trip afforded students and faculty a unique opportunity to experience remarkable art and design projects from leading design teams of established creators to recent graduate work from renowned design academies from across Europe. Beyond the obvious inspiration these works evoke, there was a myriad of benefits to this initiative for both faculty and students.
The creative work showcased dealt with a range of issues and variables that impact and shape contemporary art and design. These emerging and present issues go beyond the traditional considerations of form and function, such as use and influence of AI, accessibility, inter-disciplinary collaboration, social design, and sustainability. These issues helped shape much of the work displayed at DDW and underscored the importance of these developments in design and art. Far from hindering the creative process, these variables allowed for further innovation amongst designers and artists.
Students and faculty were able to view the works in person, including speaking directly to the creators about how these variables were parsed out in the creative process. Many of the works of art and design exhibited highlighted the need for expertise in one’s area, balanced by the ability of all artists and designers to work collaboratively together.
As faculty, I was struck by the absence of barriers between the fields of art and design. In the Netherlands, and across Europe, the lines that delineate the boundaries between these two disciplines are blurred. Strong art contains great design, and vice versa, strong design contains great art. Many of these creative works exhibited at DDW 2024 were done in unison between artists and designers, and in some instances, incorporating the work of engineers and scientists. This confirms the importance of and re-affirms the aims of Humber Polytechnic for more robust collaboration: between programs within FMCAD, between faculties at the college, and the institution and international, education partners such as Fontys.
After touring through the various areas of Eindhoven that housed these projects, from design studios to fully immersive, art installations, students were well grounded in the terrain of contemporary art and design and its demands. The students’ experience of DDW culminated in a collaborative brain-storming session with students and faculty from Fontys Interactive Design program. The focus of the session revolved around the use of AI – the ways artists and designers can leverage this tool, while retaining one’s autonomy and creativity.
I encourage faculty and students within FMCAD to partake in this wonderful opportunity to attend DDW and collaborate on interdisciplinary projects that confront issues of accessibility, AI use, and sustainability that will shape our future designs.
Marc Colangelo is the Program Coordinator and Faculty member of the Visual & Digital Arts and Art Foundation programs. Click here for more on Faculty-led International Trips.
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