Beale didn’t exactly hate her job in the tech industry, but she didn’t feel as passionately about selling specialized IT services as she did about contemporary Canadian art, the legacy of female dealers and the cat she named after pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Rossetti.

Just before moving to Winnipeg in 2020, the erstwhile student at the U.K.’s Exeter University determined it was worth investing more time and energy into a career in the art world.

“I decided that I just didn’t want to spend another day not being close to art,” says Beale, an art history student at the University of Manitoba who describes herself as a ballsy go-getter. “I wanted to try to make it work, so I gave myself a year, and then really quickly after I made that decision, the ball just really got rolling.”

To read the entire story, please follow the link to The Free Press.

While many of these courses are tailored for School of Art students, one standout this year is FA 1212: Art, Technology, and Culture of Video Games. Open to all UM students with no prerequisites, this new course bridges the arts, sciences, and humanities through the study of video games as cultural and creative forms. It’s a unique opportunity for students across faculties—especially U1, Arts, and Science—to explore visual culture in an accessible and engaging way.

Fall 2025 Highlights

FAAH 3150: Nineteenth-Century European Art: Cultural Transformations and Artistic Movements
Instructor: Dr. Stephen Borys
A course examining the major artistic movements of nineteenth-century Europe, from Romanticism and Realism to Impressionism. Students will explore how artists responded to industrialization, urban growth, and political upheaval, while developing critical insights into how painting and sculpture shaped and reflected cultural change.

FAAH 3250: Queer Art
Instructor: Dr. Braden Scott
A course considering how sexual and gender diversity is expressed, encoded, or obscured in visual culture. Students will trace queer art histories across time and geography, exploring questions of visibility, identity, and representation.

FAAH 4070: Bauhaus-Canada
Instructor: Dr. Oliver Botar
Examining the influence of the Bauhaus in Canadian contexts, this seminar investigates intersections of modernism, pedagogy, and artistic innovation.

FAAH 4082: Seminar in Art Historiography
Instructor: Dr. David Foster
An advanced seminar focusing on the debates, methodologies, and historiographies that shape the field of art history.

STDO 2680: Introduction to Art Therapy
Instructor: Tanissa Martindale
This course introduces students to the principles and practices of art therapy, exploring how creative processes can support healing and well-being.

STDO 2680: Ceramic Tiles
Instructor: Grace Nickel
Students will experiment with tile-based ceramic design, learning technical processes while exploring historical and contemporary approaches.

STDO 3680: With the Land: Artists Outside
Instructor: Sarah Ciurysek
A land-based studio at FortWhyte Alive, where students engage directly with seasonal changes through observation, movement, and creative process.

STDO 3680: Sketching Time
Instructor: Matthis Grunsky
Students explore drawing as a practice of attention and reflection, maintaining daily sketchbooks and emphasizing the slow, observational qualities of mark-making.

STDO 3680: Experiments with Video Projection
Instructor: Freya Olafson
A hands-on course in expanded video practices, including projection mapping, performance integration, and site-specific installation.

STDO 3682: The Figure in Drawing and Painting
Instructor: Mark Neufeld
This course explores figuration through studio practice and critical readings, examining both historical and contemporary approaches to representing the body.

STDO 3684: Photography and Materiality
Instructor: Dominique Rey
A hybrid studio that investigates photography as both image and object, combining digital and analog processes with sculpture, painting, and performance.

STDO 3686: Small Scale Sculpture
Instructor: Erika Dueck
Students create intimate sculptural works, exploring the possibilities of materials, scale, and space.

Winter 2026 Highlights

FA 1212: Art, Technology, and Culture of Video Games
Instructor: TBA
Students analyze video games as artistic, narrative, and cultural forms. Topics include design, interactivity, and visual culture in contemporary media. Open to all UM students with no prerequisites—ideal for U1, Arts, and Science.

FAAH 3160: Mid-Century Modernist Abstraction
Instructor: Dr. Shepherd Steiner
This seminar focuses on the art and ideas that shaped abstraction in the mid-20th century, from its formal innovations to its global influences.

FAAH 3250 / STDO 3674: Manitoba Print History
Instructors: Dr. Oliver Botar and Suzie Smith
A combined seminar and studio exploring Winnipeg’s influence on Canadian printmaking. Students will study Indigenous and activist print histories alongside hands-on practice in screen printing, woodcut, and collagraph techniques.
Note: These courses are corequisites and must be taken together.

FAAH 4070: Building and Making Things from the Earth
Instructor: Dr. Braden Scott
Exploring sustainability, symbolism, and material sourcing in art and architecture, this course investigates global histories of extraction and production.

FAAH 4090: Indigenous Feminisms
Instructor: Dr. Suzanne McLeod
This seminar explores how First Nations, Inuit, and Métis women artists address gendered violence, settler colonialism, and cultural resurgence through diverse media.

STDO 3672: Design and Printmaking
Instructor: Leigh Bridges
A studio course at the intersection of graphic design and printmaking. Students will create posters, zines, and card decks, exploring collaborative and experimental strategies.

STDO 3680: Intermediate Performance Art
Instructor: Lori Blondeau
Students expand on foundational practices in performance, working through solo and collaborative projects that engage gesture, time, and audience.

STDO 3680: Puppets in Animation or Performance
Instructor: Derek Brueckner
This course introduces the design and creation of puppets and miniature sets for stop-motion or live performance, with an emphasis on narrative and metaphor.

STDO 3680: Natural Dyes, Fibres, and Fabrics
Instructor: Katherine Boyer
Explores sustainable and culturally rooted practices of dyeing and fibre construction, foregrounding material-based research.

STDO 3682: On the Surface
Instructor: M.E. Sparks
A topics course examining approaches to surface in drawing and painting, from experimental mark-making to conceptual layering.

These offerings reaffirm the School of Art’s commitment to critical inquiry, diverse perspectives, and innovative approaches to artmaking—while opening new doors for students across the university to join the conversation.

For more information or to view the full list of courses, visit Aurora: aurora-registration.umanitoba.ca/StudentRegistrationSsb/ssb/registration

Unveiling a Hidden Image

In 2006, a team of restorers undertook the meticulous cleaning of Pinturicchio’s 1494 Resurrection fresco, located in the Sala dei Misteri in the Borgia Apartments of the Apostolic Palace. During this restoration, they uncovered a small yet significant depiction in the background of the resurrection scene: Indigenous men dancing nude and adorned with feathered headdresses. This discovery sparked widespread interest and debate within the art community.

Historical Context and Significance

In 2015, the Director of the Vatican Museums issued a statement suggesting that this image might be the earliest European depiction of Indigenous people, likely inspired by the descriptions Columbus provided following his 1492 explorations. This revelation sent shockwaves through Europe and prompted the Vatican to act swiftly.

The result was the issuance of the first in a series of Papal Bulls concerning the New World, known as Inter caetera or the “Doctrine of Discovery,” on May 4, 1493. These bulls delineated the boundaries of territorial claims between Spain and Portugal and laid the groundwork for the interactions between Europeans and Native Americans. Pinturicchio’s fresco, therefore, gained immense significance as it marked an early moment in the visual representation and subsequent distortion of Indigenous people in European art.

Impact on Art and Perceptions

The presence of the “Indian” in Pinturicchio’s fresco had far-reaching implications. It established a visual reference that influenced the portrayal of Native Americans throughout the Renaissance and beyond. The research team, led by Dr. McLeod, aims to explore how this image contributed to the stereotyping and misrepresentation of Indigenous people, shaping perceptions that persist to this day.

A New Cross-Disciplinary Narrative

Dr. McLeod and her team are not only interested in the historical and artistic significance of this discovery but also in its relevance to contemporary discussions on reconciliation. By tracing the distribution and evolution of this image throughout the sixteenth century, they hope to fill gaps in the art historical record and offer a new, cross-disciplinary narrative. Crucially, this narrative will be framed from the perspective of First Nations people, ensuring that their voices and experiences are central to the story.

Moving Forward

The presentation at the Bibliotheca Hertziana marks a significant step in this ongoing research project. As Dr. McLeod and her team continue to uncover and analyze the layers of meaning within Pinturicchio’s fresco, they contribute to a deeper understanding of how art has been used to construct and perpetuate cultural narratives. Their work serves as a reminder of the power of images and the importance of revisiting and reassessing historical artifacts with a critical and inclusive lens.

By shedding light on the early distortion of Indigenous representations in European art, Dr. McLeod and her team pave the way for a more nuanced and just portrayal of Native American history and culture.