Fine Art
Right: Ronan Alice Porter, UCA Canterbury
Cover: John Connor, UCA Farnham
Fine Art
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Introduction
Our Fine Art and Illustration courses in Canterbury and Farnham offer our students ambitious and professional approaches to the discipline, enabling our graduates to thrive in their chosen paths. Fine art’s unique approach to self-directed learning equips our graduates with exceptional collaborative, networking and leadership skills, supporting them in pursuing a range of high-powered careers in the art market and beyond. We’re extremely proud of our graduates and their achievements. World-famous artists such as Tracey Emin and Simon Starling are among our alumni. Our Fine Art courses at UCA Canterbury and UCA Farnham are rich in their own distinctive cultures, each benefiting from a specific regional and global creative dynamic. Our presence at UCA Canterbury is based on close relationships with the region’s creative institutions and networks, including the Turner Contemporary in Margate. This enables us to both reach out to our local communities but also develop global networks through these internationally renowned institutions. Students at UCA Farnham benefit from being located close to the vibrant London arts scene. Relationships with regional museums and galleries include Watts Gallery, where graduating students regularly undertake residencies. We also have a thriving visiting artists programme which has seen us linked to a variety of respected names in the art world such as Gavin Turk, Gustav Metzger, Martin Creed, and Bob and Roberta Smith.
Our Illustration courses give you the opportunity to explore storytelling and narrative in a variety of creative ways, from bookbinding to drawing, stitching to sculpting. With no house style to restrict you, we encourage diverse thinking, new ideas and experimentation when it comes to illustration. You’ll be able to make use of our impressive facilities and excellent resources when you study at UCA, enabling you to aim high with what you seek to achieve. Workshops, for instance, span subjects ranging from bronze casting to time-based practices, and are supported by highly-skilled technical teams. A number of our academics are renowned artists, including Nicky Hamlyn, Andrew Kötting and Kathleen Rogers. By offering you a wide range of opportunities including studio spaces, digital, technical and material resources, and curatorial and exhibiting initiatives, we aim to give you everything you need to fully explore and develop your own creative ideas in an entrepreneurial and professional context.
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Find the right course for you
BA (Hons) Fine Art UCA Canterbury 3 and 4 year routes available
Raffaella Pelliccia, UCA Canterbury
Fine Art at our Canterbury campus is a selfdirected degree course which will encourage you to experiment and develop your own art practice. In the first year, you’ll be introduced to the innovative approaches to making and thinking about fine art, producing a substantial body of work in the Studio Practice units. You’ll learn models of production, dissemination and reception of contemporary art practice through the Context & Display unit. Alongside this, you’ll undertake historical and theoretical research around contemporary art. In the second year, you’ll be encouraged to work more independently to develop your individual practice, experimenting further with different media and collaborating with other students in the realisation of an off-site project or public outcome. In the final year, you’ll demonstrate your ability for critical thinking and creatively demonstrate your ideas through a body of self-initiated work, which you will have the opportunity to exhibit as part of the Graduation Show. Alongside your art practice you’ll undertake a large body of self-directed research to produce a substantial piece of critical writing.
Duration: 3 years full-time UCAS code: C93/W100/C UCAS tariff points: 112
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Duration: 4 years full-time UCAS code: C93/W102/C UCAS tariff points: 64
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BA (Hons) Fine Art
BA (Hons) Illustration
UCA Farnham
UCA Farnham 3 and 4 year routes available
Danielle Sandling, UCA Farnham
Jasmine Tutton, UCA Farnham
Our Fine Art course in Farnham reflects the dynamism and attitude of contemporary art practice, promoting critical engagement with society, culture and politics through painting, sculpture, film, printmaking, photography, drawing or performance.
On our long-established and renowned Illustration course has a strong reputation for visual narrative and documentary, underpinned by an understanding that the best illustration is based on exciting, original ideas.
In the first year, you’ll be introduced to the key concepts of contemporary art practice, while also beginning the contextual study of the ideas that inform contemporary art, building the foundations for the work you’ll undertake throughout the course. The second year will see you delve deeper into the context and history of contemporary art, experimenting with ideas, shapes, spaces and different disciplines (paint, sculpture or print media). You’ll have the opportunity to exhibit your work through a live project while you explore your ideas. Your final major project will be the main focus of your third year, an opportunity for you to combine the practical skills you have learned throughout the course while also demonstrating your ability to communicate ideas and think critically about your work. This will be accompanied by your dissertation.
Duration: 3 years full-time UCAS code: C93/W101/F UCAS tariff points: 112
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The content and delivery on our course reflects trends in the creative industries for illustrators to be collaborative and flexible, initiating new opportunities for shared and individual work. In the first year, you’ll be able to experiment with ideas and image making, exploring your craft and learn the fundamentals of storytelling through illustration in both still and moving image and threedimensional work. In your second year, you’ll build on these principles, working in a more self-directed way, with the opportunity to explore new processes and skills. You’ll gain experience of the professional environment through externally focused projects, as well as establishing a good working practice, which will give you the experience and underpinning knowledge to progress into your final year. The final year of the course is focused on establishing a unique visual approach and preparing you for the launch of your professional career.
Duration: 3 years full-time UCAS code: C93/W220/F UCAS tariff points: 112
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Duration: 4 years full-time UCAS code: C93/W221/F UCAS tariff points: 64
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Your career
Our Fine Art degrees create opportunities for you to discover diverse artistic practices that will propel your creative vision and help you choose a future career path.
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By exploring your artistic desires and discovering a range of disciplines, from painting to illustration, you’ll be able to apply your new skillset to your future career. UCA has built a strong reputation in the creative industries and has excellent connections with top brands and recognised institutions from the Institute of Contemporary Art, the Saatchi Gallery, the Turner Contemporary, the Tate Modern and the Henry Moore Institute.
Many of our alumni have gone on to become artists as well as: –– Filmmakers
You’ll have access to competitive work placements during your studies where you’ll get to make important industry connections, gain recognition and learn from top academics who have worked with world-renowned artists and creators. You’ll also produce beautiful portfolios and have the chance to exhibit your work.
–– Art historians
–– Publishers –– Designers –– Animators –– Museum curators –– Photographers –– Gallery owners and many more. At UCA, we have a proud tradition of supporting students and equipping them with everything they need to thrive in the workplace. In fact, 96.9% of our students find employment or go on to further study within the first six months after graduating.
Your career
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Nanda Gurung, UCA Canterbury
“ Fine Art is known for being an amalgamation of pretty much every creative aspect, and I loved that I could work with paint and print, yet not be restricted by it. My work is very mixed media based, so having the free creativity that the course allowed inspired and pushed my work to grow. “ My favourite thing was the studio environment. Having such a range of people come together from all different backgrounds and with unique working habits really encourages both you and your work. “ The one thing that clearly defines UCA from any other university is the interaction with other artists. Being surrounded by people who are equally passionate and engaged as you are with your subject is both motivational and influential. “ UCA is just a great community, creating future artists within all fields – studying at this university was one of the best decisions I ever made.”
Amy Stevens BA (Hons) Fine Art, UCA Canterbury Graduated 2018
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Portfolio advice
What is a portfolio? A portfolio is a collection of your work that demonstrates your range of skills and creative talent. It’s your opportunity to showcase your individuality, creativity, inspirations and artistic abilities, and a useful way for us to evaluate your suitability for the course you’ve applied to. It might contain design work, drawings, art projects, photographs, films, sound work, music composition, or examples of creative writing or essays. Think of your portfolio as a statement about your work – it should exhibit your creative journey, thought processes and influences. Don’t be afraid to be bold and appeal to a viewer, keeping their attention and leaving them feeling excited about your creative potential.
What should my portfolio include? Your portfolio should feature examples of your research and show the development of your ideas and projects – this should be highly presentable and well organised. It may be useful to arrange your work into themes, styles or chronological order, demonstrating good organisational skills and your own artistic awareness. Make sure you show your passion for the subject – look into your favourite artists, creators and performers and the other things they make. Show us what inspires you, ideas you’ve had and materials you’ve worked with. Your portfolio should exhibit your creative journey, thinking processes and individual personality, so we can assess your potential. It’s important to show both your inspirations and aspirations, as your portfolio says a lot about you and your creative identity. Documenting the development of your ideas in a sketchbook is a great way to show us how you approached the task of creating your work, giving us insight into your creative thinking and how you approach your subject. Make sure your portfolio is well presented. Our tutors only have a short amount of time to look through each portfolio, so you need to organise your work intelligently. We recommend that you include between 10 and 25 pieces of work, neatly mounted on white or off-white paper in either landscape or portrait format (not a mixture of both).
Find out more The course pages at uca.ac.uk provide clear guidance on what we’d like to see in your portfolio for each of our courses. We’ve also put together a set of videos talking you through the process: uca.ac.uk/study/portfolio-advice 10
Put some of your most attention-grabbing and interesting work at the front and lead us through your journey, showcasing a variety of skills, materials, techniques and influences – it could include paintings, drawings, photography, digital pieces, storyboards, animation images or written work. If you include moving image work, we recommend a maximum of two minutes’ running time. Highlight your favourite pieces too, and indicate what or who inspires you.
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Nicola Barnard, UCA Farnham
“ Throughout school I enjoyed the subject of art, but always felt limited by the curriculum criteria as I appreciated the conceptual side of the arts over the technical application. Both the Foundation Diploma and Fine Art degree that I took at UCA allowed me to directly expand on this appreciation, whilst simultaneously developing my interests into a professional practice. “ My inspiration for making comes from my passion for research. Making is a way for me to integrate my research in a way that is accessible for an audience in an emotional capacity. I feel urgency to make and create in order to relay information about the world that I believe is critical for current debates. “ The creative freedom we had allowed us to follow our own lines of technical and theoretical research. The fact that we were provided such good studio spaces made coming into university feel like being a practicing professional artist, so these spaces really help you get into that mindset. “ The intimacy of the campus made it easy to meet and collaborate with other creative students across disciplines, which broadened my own understanding of creative industries and practices.”
Amber Clausner BA (Hons) Fine Art, UCA Farnham Graduated 2017
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Course leaders
Jane Cradock-Watson Course Leader for BA (Hons) Illustration — UCA Farnham Jane Cradock-Watson leads our BA and MA Illustration degrees at UCA Farnham. Prior to this, she was Associate Dean for our School of Media and Culture. Jane has worked as an illustrator on commissions from a wide range of clients in editorial illustration, packaging design, publishing, TV and advertising. Her specialist fields include packaging and nonfiction publishing. Jane’s personal research focuses on the production of limited edition hand-made artists’ books with much of her work using photography and printmaking. She has exhibited regularly since 2009. Many of Jane’s books are in major national and international collections, such as the Tate Britain, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Yale collection of British Art. The metaphor of the landscape and nature have been a major theme in the creation of her books, providing an intimate and sensory experience with nature, and engaging the audience in reflecting on the natural world as a metaphor for life.
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Craig Fisher
Paul Vivian
Course Leader for BA (Hons) Fine Art
Course Leader for BA (Hons) Fine Art
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UCA Canterbury
UCA Farnham
Craig Fisher is a practising artist who makes paintings, objects and large-scale sculptural installations using various fabrics and textile techniques to question representations of violence, disaster and macho stereotypes. Ideas of filmic or cartoon violence are juxtaposed with decorative motifs and craft techniques; the sense of saturation at play in the work makes it easy to miss the horror, due to the seductive nature and materiality of the artwork.
Paul Vivian leads our Fine Art course at UCA Farnham. Paul studied Painting at Chelsea College of Arts, and has an MA Fine Art from Norwich University of the Arts.
Craig’s current practice is concerned with exploring the pictorial, sculptural and ‘site specific’ boundaries of art practice. The work situates itself by exploiting and employing contradictory methods, referencing both ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture and juxtaposing the pictorial with the sculptural as potential spaces of slippage, which allow for discoveries beyond confined and referenced fields of art production. Craig curates ‘Mrs Rick’s Cupboard’, a project that presents the work of contemporary artists in exhibitions in an unconventional gallery setting – a walk-in cupboard in his current studio at Primary, Nottingham. mrsrickscupboard.com
Solo exhibitions include ‘Power Down’ at 45 Park Lane, Mayfair; ‘Sartorius Islands’ at ARTGENE, Barrow in Furness; ‘The Tardiness’ K6 Gallery, Southampton; and ‘SU-PER-NAT-U-RAL’ at A Space, Southampton. Group shows include ‘Malevolent Eldritch Shrieking’ ATTERCLIFFE ™, Sheffield; ‘The Tomorrow People’ Elevator Gallery, London; ‘Dead Famous’, HA HA Gallery, Southampton; ‘Doors in the Wall’; OUT Outpost Gallery, Norwich; BEARSPACE Bermondsey; Wirksworth Festival in Derbyshire; and the Tulca Visual Arts Festival, Galway, Republic of Ireland. Paul has spoken on the subject of collage, and its relationship to trauma and territory at conferences in Oxford, Prague and Berlin. Contributing to ‘Trauma Theory and Practice’, published in 2017, Paul has also recently contributed to Q Art’s survey of professional practice in HE Art education. paulvivianstudio.com
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Tuesday Logan, UCA Farnham
“ I’ve changed a lot since starting at UCA, not only has my work improved but I’ve become a lot more confident in speaking and writing about it. I struggled to get into researching at first but now I feel more engaged with what I’m doing, the research goes hand-in-hand with my practice. “ We had a lot of opportunities to see what students in all three years were making which was good as you start to create links with people. Having critical shows pushes you to try things out you that might not do in your studio, too. “ I went to visit an artist’s studio in London which was one of the best things we did, as she spoke really openly about taking risks and being an artist. As well as having your own studio space, there are also test spaces in fine art where you can photograph your work and set things up to see them outside of your studio. “ I’ve used the cinema to show a film I had made and performed in, and I hired cameras from stores all the time. You can take things like screens and projectors for critical shows or external exhibitions which is really useful.”
Annie Murrells BA (Hons) Fine Art, UCA Farnham Graduated 2018
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Our facilities
When studying Fine Art or Illustration at UCA, no matter which campus you choose, you’re provided with an individual studio space and specialist workshops include painting, printmaking, woodworking, metalworking, bronze foundry, plaster casting and mould making, laser-cutting, digital printing and moving image editing.
Canterbury
Farnham
UCA Canterbury provides purpose-built studios, workshops and lecture theatres for nearly 1,000 students studying fine art, graphics, illustration and animation, architecture and interiors.
UCA Farnham has extensive purpose-built facilities for over 2,000 students studying a wide range of creative arts subject areas including film, animation, graphics, illustration, fine art, photography, textiles, journalism and advertising.
We promote a culture of creativity across all our courses and you can use all the facilities regardless of which programme you’re on. These facilities include: –– Laser cutting, 3D printing and CNC routing –– D igital Media rooms equipped with PCs and Macs, and a range of industry-standard specialist software –– T wo specialist shops on campus for art supplies, materials and equipment hire –– W ood, metal, casting and printmaking workshops, and a photography studio and darkrooms to support the widest possible range of making.
Some of our facilities include: –– Industry-standard video production equipment, editing software, sound editing software, digital media software and CGI software –– W ood, metal and casting/mould making workshops equipment for fine art practices –– Laser cutting, rapid prototyping and 3D Printing –– F ully equipped Foundry for casting bronze and aluminium –– Large format digital printing and scanning –– T raditional Printmaking workshop, including intaglio, relief, screen printing and letterpress –– F ully-equipped photographic studios with darkrooms, digital processing and finishing facilities and full industry-standard lighting rigs –– A ccess to ceramic materials, equipment and processes. For UCA Canterbury and UCA Farnham, the painting workshop includes wax encaustic, gesso, fresco, egg tempera and oil, handmade paper for casting. The photography suite includes film and digital cameras, dedicated film scanners, chemical darkrooms, and alternative non-silver processes.
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The James Hockey and Foyer galleries The James Hockey and Foyer galleries present a broad range of exhibitions and events, acting as a focal point for UCA’s creative talent in promoting research and experimentation across numerous disciplines. These include fine art, design, film, animation, and craft and design.
Please note, access to each campus and its resources can sometimes depend on the campus you choose to study at. For example, you may be using the facilities at the campus where your course is based but not always at others – this depends on your course. 19
“ I chose the course because I love art and I have always enjoyed creating, it was the only subject at school that I voluntarily worked hard at. I would often go in on weekends or break times and I used to spend every free period in the art department working. “ I enjoyed the freedom of the Fine Art course at UCA; you’re not constrained to one particular practice and although I generally do paintings it was nice to know that I wasn’t limited to that. I enjoyed how you’re really encouraged to experiment, especially in the first year. “ The tutors are fantastic, although you have your own personal tutor who is your main point of contact you can have a chat with any of them whenever you need to. It’s nice to get fresh perspectives on your work because they each have their own thoughts and opinions, and a wealth of knowledge about existing artists and having an art practice in general. “ The technicians in the workshops are also amazing, they’re so friendly and helpful and I know that no matter how complex my idea they are willing to help and advise.”
Ronan Alice Porter BA (Hons) Fine Art, UCA Canterbury Graduated 2018
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Jacqeline Martin, UCA Canterbury
Next steps
How to apply The course you choose determines how you apply – this could be through UCAS (the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service) or directly to UCA. Find out more uca.ac.uk/study/how-to-apply ucas.com/apply Contact us If you’ve got any queries regarding the admissions process or your application, please contact the relevant admissions team: UK/EU admissions T: +44 (0)1252 892 960 E: admissions@uca.ac.uk International admissions T: +44 (0)1252 892 785 E: internationaladmissions@uca.ac.uk Connect with us @UniCreativeArts facebook.com/ucreativearts @unicreativearts @unicreativearts youtube.com/unicreativearts #WeCreate blog.uca.ac.uk social.uca.ac.uk Join us at #UCAlive We run live Q&A sessions where you can ask us anything you like about what it’s like to live and study here at UCA. Visit uca.ac.uk/live to find out about our next #UCAlive session.
Disclaimer The information in this brochure is believed to be correct at the time of publication. The University reserves the right to introduce changes to the information given including the addition, withdrawal, relocation or restructuring of any programmes. The information in this brochure is subject to change and does not form part of any contract between UCA and the student and his/her sponsor. For up-to-date and more detailed information on any of our courses and studying at UCA, please visit uca.ac.uk 1035-0318