Fine Art (Professional Placement Year)

A studio-centred fine arts degree, encouraging independent enquiry and delivered by practising artists.

• Outstanding programme of visiting speakers, including internationally acclaimed artists and curators.

• Exceptional academic and technical support in painting, sculpture, printmaking, drawing, film, sound, performance and photography.

• Exciting collaborative opportunities with external partners such as Tate Exchange, Porthleven Prize and Gane Trust Travel Award.

This studio-centred course offers you the opportunity to explore the disciplines of painting, sculpture, performance, installation, printmaking, and lens-based and digital media.

The Fine Art course is characterised by a profound synergy between academic and technical teaching and learning. You'll work towards an independent, critical and reflective practice, supported through tutorials, workshops, lectures, study trips and, in the first year, weekly contact with your personal tutor.

Our lecturers are engaged in their own practice as artists, bringing a contagious energy to the dialogue and exchange with students. In this community, students, tutors and dedicated technicians work together to understand and develop what contemporary art can or should be today. You’ll develop the skills you need for a successful career - as an artist or in a related profession.

More about the Professional Placement Year
A Professional Placement Year (PPY), traditionally known as a sandwich year, is where you undertake a period of work with an external organisation for between 9-13 months. The placement occurs between your second and final years of undergraduate study. You can engage in multiple placements to make up the total time and are required to source the placement(s) yourself, with support from the Careers team.

In Year 1 experimentation with materials, techniques and processes are foregrounded. You’ll establish a way of working that is playful and analytical; through this process you’ll begin to recognise what themes are emerging in your work.

Year 2 is a pivotal period of development in which you are supported to progress your ideas, conceptual strategies and processes. You are encouraged to develop an awareness of the debates that surround your practice and continually test its boundaries. Off site exhibitions, projects and other initiatives will support you to consider work beyond the studio.

In your final year, you’ll build upon their ideas you explore in years 1 and 2. Greater emphasis is placed not only on a body of resolved, considered and well executed work, but also on work that is ambitious and takes risks. At the end of the year you’ll present work in a degree show that is open to the public.

The course is made up of summative and formative assessments. Formative assessment takes place with the work in the studio and is ongoing throughout the duration of the course. Feedback is given verbally and through written reports from a personal tutor. Summative assessments take place at the end of modules. Assessments take the form of a presented body of work, an exhibition, reflective/academic text or live presentations.