Portfolio Requirements

A portfolio is a visual archive of your personal artistic accomplishments that demonstrates your ability and potential as a creative artist or designer.

It is one of the application requirements of students applying to the Art Foundation Program (AFO) or Bachelor of Fine Arts Programs at VCUarts Qatar. All undergraduate BFA students must complete the one-year Art Foundation program at VCUarts Qatar before applying to the department of their choice during the annual spring portfolio review.

BA in Art History students do not take the Art Foundation program.

All applicants are required to upload the portfolio of their own creative artworks, along with the required university application materials to VCUarts Qatar’s online admission system. 

• Part I – One portfolio exercise: “Journey” (as explained further down the page).

• Part II – Additional exercises: Examples of your best and most recent work that demonstrate your current interests, an awareness of design principles, and experience with a variety of tools, media, styles, and approaches.

• Make a work, or a series of works (up to five pieces), that interprets what a “journey” means for you. This is a creative challenge, and you may approach it in any way you wish.  
• For example, you may use any medium or material, including two dimensional, three dimensional, or time-based media, and you can interpret the subject of “journey” in any way you would like. Select and use materials which best suit your project. These may include two and three dimensional, traditional and/or non-traditional materials and techniques, plus time-based work such as video, animation, and sound (two minutes maximum), and/or digitally generated media.
• Be inventive with your ideas! You may do this project in any combination of media; however, the finished work(s) must be uploaded in SlideRoom.
• In 250 words or less, please write a description of your ‘journey’ project. You can write about the approach you took to make the project and about what made you decide to choose the materials that you used. You can also write about the idea that you wanted to convey in your project, etc.

• Additional examples of your best and most recent work that demonstrate your current interests, an awareness of design principles, and experience with a variety of tools, media, styles, and approaches.
• Upload five examples to SlideRoom.

• Drawings must be done from observation, that is, from looking directly at the objects or the view and NOT from photographs or other published material (including photographs found on the internet).
• Images must be uploaded to SlideRoom. SlideRoom is the system VCUarts Qatar uses to accept and review portfolios. You can find information about image and video formats and sizes at this link.
• Candidates may be invited for an in-person interview with VCUarts Qatar faculty after the submission of both the CommonApp and the portfolio. Academic honesty and integrity are the standards expected and adhered to at VCUarts Qatar. 
• Candidates suspected of plagiarizing or including work done by others will be barred from admittance to VCUarts Qatar. Copying others’ work, including photographs, illustrations, artworks, etc., is considered plagiarism.