For HBU Senior Director of Visual Arts, Professor of Art and Artist-In-Residence (Painting) Michael Roque Collins, instruction in art flows naturally out of his love for translating his vision onto canvases.
He particularly relishes the opportunity to teach students in a Christian setting at HBU. “It’s an honor to teach here,” Collins said. “Doing painting is kind of like prayer. It’s about faith, hope, life and about hope winning out over fear.”
Collins draws revelation from the scenes of nature, and from the life cycles found in both biology and human culture. His latest collection, entitled “Inland Mountain Journey,” was recently displayed in the distinguished LewAllen Galleries of Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Kenneth R. Marvel, galley owner, described the collection as “a product of a remarkable interplay of the conscious and subconscious interacting to produce radiant visual poetry.”
Through the use of oil on linen and mixed media on photographs, Collins creates scenes that are part-realism and part-fancy. The artwork of Collins appears at once antique and modern. It is timeless perhaps because it addresses the immemorial nature and experience common to humanity.
Collins, along with each of his art faculty colleagues, continues to practice his fine art forms while teaching students. Solo exhibitions like Inland Mountain Journey are emblematic of how HBU art instructors professionally excel. As with all top MFA and BFA programs, students are inspired by professional artistic application.
The Studio Visual Arts programs of HBU have been designed to mix all levels of proficiency; students are witnesses and practitioners of the process that studio visual art mediums require in order to create art at the highest levels. The sharing of creative ideas between students and faculty, and the heightened sense of discourse allowed by faculty maintaining small on-campus studios (in addition to larger off-campus main studios), make an ideal learning environment. Moreover, fine arts students gain confidence in their ability to formulate their own art that arises from spiritual contemplation.
Visit the HBU School of Fine Arts to learn more.
View the work of Michael Roque Collins.
HBU Department of Visual Arts Programs
- Undergraduate Major: Studio Art (BA)
- Undergraduate Major: Studio Art (BFA)
- Undergraduate Major: Art with All-Level Teacher Certification
- Undergraduate Major: Pre-Professional Art Therapy
- Master of Fine Arts (MFA)