MA Fine Art

<p dir="ltr">Whether working in a singular Fine Art discipline, such as painting, drawing, sculpture, video, sound, printmaking, installation or performance, or across multiple areas of creative practice, you are encouraged to explore ideas through a process of making and experimentation that extends into new understanding or innovative creative directions. You will be introduced, through ongoing visiting lecturers, seminars, research intensives, critiques and site visits, to the ways in which contemporary art inhabits a range of contexts, from traditional gallery exhibitions to public art projects and socially-engaged collaborations. You will participate in current, international cultural debates through research into the relevant topics that will allow you to build a body of knowledge and practice to define what it means to be an artist in the 21st century.</p>

<p dir="ltr">Taught within reach of some of the best material resources, media environments and studios available anywhere in an arts university, your practice-led research and study can take form through traditional processes, as a range of media outcomes or as entirely conceptual, while being enriched by its realisation within a community of active practitioners who will challenge, guide and accelerate your creative development to be purposeful, critically informed and culturally attuned to our time. </p> <p dir="ltr">We are committed to developing ethical, sustainable design practices as outlined in our <a href="https://www.aup.ac.uk/strategic-plan">Strategic Vision</a> and this ethos is embedded in all MA courses.<br /></p>

<p dir="ltr"><strong>We place you at the crossroad of material traditions and futures</strong>. You can learn to take risks, be imaginative, and develop your critical and analytical skills. You can learn to research, interpret, and analyse artistic work, and develop your cultural and visual awareness as a practitioner. MA Fine Art places you at the overlap of these creative forces to consider where you can imagine new, unrealised forms and practices. </p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>A pro-active, Interdisciplinary community</strong>. New ideas and material practices do not develop in isolation. You come to university to be challenged, supported and to take risks in a context that will inspire you to innovate and understand Fine Art as an active process of inquiry into material and cultural behaviours, possibilities and interdisciplinary forms. The course encourages conceptual exploration and transformation whether you work with <strong>painting</strong>, <strong>printmaking</strong>, <strong>drawing</strong>, <strong>photography</strong>, <strong>moving image</strong>, <strong>performance</strong>, <strong>social practice</strong> or <strong>installation</strong>.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Accelerated personal development through guided, practice-led research</strong>. We believe fine art practice is a starting point rather than a destination. As a practice steeped in tacit knowledge that is often transmitted through hands-on skills and customs, the power of the direct creativity that it offers is aligned to your personal transformation. You will be trained to carry out practice-led research processes and explore conceptual and theoretical frameworks that lead to personal discovery and future-oriented, contemporary professional options. </p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>World-class workshops and facilities</strong>: During your time on the course, you will have access to one of the most diverse and spacious ecosystems of workshops, studios and labs known in a contemporary art and design school. Based primarily in our Postgraduate Studios, you are immersed in facilities across the University that allow you to hone your existing skills and be introduced to novel processes. Our approach is to support the full range of analogue and digital processes where you can play and experiment with where the material meets the technological in your practice. </p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Sustainable ethos and specialist knowledge</strong>: Part of the value of creative practice is the fact that many traditional methods and techniques take into account the cycles, ecology and biodiversity of nature. Built into our MA courses is an emphasis on the sustainable, ethical, non-extractive and regenerative approaches to working with materials, which not only provides a meaningful link between the past and the future, but puts you at the forefront of knowing the alternative ways of making that support new, more sustainable industries and give rise to material innovations that better serve the environment and planet.</p>

<p>Click the button below to book an informal online chat with Postgraduate Course Leader, <a href="https://www.aup.ac.uk/people/tom-milnes" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Dr. Tom Milnes</a>.</p>