University of Chichester

MA Fine Art

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Program Rationale

The MA Fine Art is a broad, studio-based program that encourages both specialist and cross-disciplinary approaches. The curriculum is structured on the dynamic interplay of material practice and theory, through which specialist studio disciplines are integrated with theoretical, cultural, aesthetic and socio-political contexts enabling creative exploration of ideas through methodological and analytical frameworks. The program is devised as ‘year four’, seen as a continuation from either undergraduate studies or as the point of re-entry into higher education following a period of time away from study. The MA in Fine Art is designed to enable students to extend and deepen their fine art practice within an experimental, analytical, challenging and creatively stimulating environment.

The focus on studio-practice and on further development of technical and research skills is designed to support students in the refinement of their work to professional standards that reflect contemporary art practices and meet the demands of both professional and advanced scholarly contexts.

The program emphasises an approach to learning based on individual student development through self-initiated studio proposals.

The program supports a diversity of student intake from a broad range of background and age, with a strong commitment to life long learning and widening participation.

This is a one year full-time or two years part-time Masters program in Fine Art. It is designed for students with an undergraduate degree in Fine Art or equivalent professional arts experience.

Distinctive features of the course

The key characteristic of the program is that of practice as research in which single and cross-disciplinary approaches to fine art are the focus of studio based visual and textual research activity. Fine Art disciplines of painting, printmaking, sculpture, textiles, ceramics and digital, screen-based work form the range of material practices available for study. The approach of practice as research echoes that of other postgraduate programs within the School of Visual and Performing Arts and encourages an integration of study and of a community of artists for post graduate and research students.

The MA is taught by practicing artists with expertise across a broad range of practices from painting, sculpture, printmaking, textile art and electronic, time-based and internet art and with experience of working within professional art contexts.

  • This Fine Art program is a one-year full time or two years part time, 12 or 24 months. There are five taught modules culminating in the presentation of a distinctive body of work in a professionally orientated public exhibition/event for the dissertation module
  • The program develops practical and intellectual Fine Art skills, combined with an engagement with key professional skills, appropriate for the demands of contemporary Fine Art practice
  • Practice based Fine Art research in painting, sculpture, textiles, printmaking and/or digital media and technologies
  • Opportunities to work with nationally recognised arts researchers
  • Development of professional working practices
  • Students can leave with a fully functioning website for their own work
  • Theory and Research Methodologies linked to practical studio work
  • Option to take collaborative Practicing Arts with New Technologies module
  • Full time students offered studio space
  • Use of ‘artOne’ studios in throughout the summer
  • Access to internationally renowned art collections.

The Program aims to

  • develop high level skills in specialist material practice (FHEQ M)
  • promote understanding of contemporary fine art strategies, methods and genres in the support of a substantial, creative and innovative body of work that extends the parameters of an individual’s practice
  • demonstrate the integration of theory and practice (FHEQ M)
  • support autonomy in planning and implementing tasks that relate to the professional contexts of exhibiting, publishing and promotion of art works (FHEQ M)
  • provide an ambitious and critically supportive network of artists
  • produce postgraduate students who can meet the requirements of potential employers or can continue into advanced study (FHEQ M)
  • widen student participation within the discipline locally, regionally and nationally (University of Chichester).