Course summary

The Fine Art Practice Degree programme is unique within Wales due to the bespoke foundry and dedicated print studio facilities. The course has an emphasis on experimentation in an exciting studio environment supported by specialist workshops; exploring the past to inform contemporary practice. The degree programme is dynamic, challenging and creative, run by tutors who are recognised specialists in their field. We aim for our students to investigate and understand the contemporary fine art world and its continually evolving position due to social and political factors. The local landscape plays an insightful role in the potential for students to explore site specific, installation, performance and land art practice. This will encourage and enable you to formulate experimental approaches through a multitude of art forms. Methods and material workshops are taught in a hands-on way; valuing the importance of thinking through making. All students are encouraged to embrace the expansive field of fine art through lectures on its history, culture and contemporary position. This is supported through discussion of your work in one to one tutorials, seminars, group and cross-course crits. You will learn transferable skills for employability within the creative industries, many former students have well-established careers regionally, nationally and internationally. Students will also form a confident language in response to contemporary art practice by the end of their studies. Our art school offers you individual workspaces and specific workshops for steel fabrication, stone carving, wood, plaster, life-drawing, painting, and a print studio for woodblock, stone lithography and etching. The department holds the only foundry in the UK that specialises in bronze, aluminium and iron casting. The first year is structured around skill based inquiry into sculpture, painting, and printmaking, learning through practical experience in a safe and inclusive environment. All students learn and develop representational drawing skills through close observation of still life and the figure. In the second and third year you will express and explore your artistic, social and personal interests independently and critically informed by focused research. Weekly tutorial sessions with tutors will support students to develop and create a personal body of work. Students have dedicated studio spaces within a well-equipped, light and airy environment. Class sizes are small allowing for a high level of tutor interaction and easy access to resources. The course supports the development of your studio practice with an emphasis on craft and skill. Lectures and contextual dialogues enable you to position yourself and your practice in terms of art history and contemporary critical thought, so that you will be equipped with the tools to map and research your own interests. Frequent opportunities for public exhibitions and events prepare you professionally for a wide range of potential careers. All these skills are transferable across a range of professional contexts. This taught creative thinking ability associated with fine art practice is becoming increasingly important in the world of commerce and business. We aim to help students realise their full potential within a supportive, friendly, nurturing and creative working environment.