Illustration

Information

Graduate Program Director: Susan Doyle
Department Website

The Illustration MFA looks to the future of the field by encouraging critical perspectives, artistic voice and engagement in the public sphere. Research based, experimental, and interdisciplinary approaches inform the student's role as an influential social actor. Through required seminars and studios, and elective courses in art, design, and liberal arts across the college, each candidate creates a focused, personally meaningful thesis that engages a community, and enhances illustration's relevance in the world.

Students

The nightmare after rape, the fear of daughters, the rage that kills.

Maren Curtis

Thesis title

Be careful with your open mouth

Untitled

2025

Hand sewn quilt, naturally dyed fabric, colored pencil, plaster, appliqué

6 x 10 ft.

Black book with embossed cover and exposed spine shown closed on right; on left, pages reveal grayscale drawings and text.

Esther Du

Thesis title

How to Walk on Water: Living Through the Absurd

The Researcher

2024

Hand Bound mixed media Artist Book. Tracing Paper, Hand-made Paper, Engraved Wood Panel, Thread, White-out Tape, Linocut Printmaking, Type-writer

8.5 x 5.5 in., 60 Pages

A person stands and examines an altar holding food and fresh flowers. On the walls are partially burned charcoal portraits.

Tori Hong

Thesis title

For the Time Beings

Untitled

2025

Fire, ashes, and charcoal on Korean mulberry paper; faux Indochina coins; faux pearls; Virginia creeper; found objects; Korean ramie thread; textiles; and other materials

10 x 10 x 10 ft.

A girl sitting with knees to chest on a bed floating through space, with strange imagery surronding her

Sadie Levine

Thesis title

Welcome to My Mind Palace: The Power of Fantastical Thinking

Alone With My Thouts

2025

Marker and pen on paper

8.5 x 11 in.

Silhouette of a face flooded with watercolor texture

Anum Naseer

Thesis title

Ib-adat

Untitled

2025

Animation using Watercolors, Yupo Paper and Digital Compositing

A line of vibrantly colored characters waiting for the bus below a line of characters waiting on the bus.

Georgia Darley Oldham

Thesis title

Show Time!

Line Land, select pages

2025

Graphite, ink, colored pencil, & crayon on paper

16 x 24 in.

a monotype with pen drawings on paper gif. A crow suspended in a claustrophobic space as a metaphor of human suspension.

Mawra Tahreem

Thesis title

Shadows in Transit

Nowhere Somewhere

2025

Monoprint with pen drawing on paper

Dimensions variable

Digitally-drawn map of RISD’s campus, with numbered buildings along curved streets, surrounded by trees.

Yimiao Wang

Thesis title

Mapping Our Tears—RISD CRY

RISD CRY

2025

Digital mixed material

64 x 48 in.

A lone figure rides a wooden horse beneath the vast cosmos, suspended between imagination and isolation.

Qing Wen

Thesis title

A Personal Manual of Escapism

The Rocking Horse Knight

2025

Mixed media on wood panel

6 x 12

A blue bird flying by a colorful forest as seen from a train window.

Margaryta Winkler

Thesis title

I Don't Want to Talk About It

Dreamtracks

2025

Graphite, colored pencils, index cards

2 min. 23 sec.

Students

Maren Curtis

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Esther Du

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Tori Hong

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Sadie Levine

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Anum Naseer

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Georgia Darley Oldham

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Mawra Tahreem

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Yimiao Wang

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Qing Wen

Instagram
Margaryta Winkler

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Yuanhui Li
Rong Xu