Fine Art

Fine art is an open-ended discipline that asks you to develop your own practice as an artist while also developing the critical and contextual understanding that sustains serious creative work over a lifetime. Unlike design disciplines, which work toward a specific brief or purpose, fine art begins with your own questions, concerns and ways of making, and asks you to develop them with rigour, ambition and self-awareness. At Leeds Arts University, a dedicated specialist institution for arts and design education, this three-year full-time degree places you in an environment where art-making is taken entirely seriously as a professional and intellectual endeavour.

You will work across a range of materials and approaches, from painting, drawing and printmaking to sculpture, installation, performance, photography and digital media, developing the technical skills needed to realise your ideas while also exploring what questions matter to you and why. Critical and contextual studies run through the programme, developing your ability to understand your own practice in relation to the history of art and contemporary artistic debates. Studio critique, peer discussion and tutorial feedback develop your ability to talk about and develop your work in the way that professional artists need to.

A typical entry tariff of around 136 points is expected.

Fine art graduates pursue careers as practising artists, arts educators, gallery and museum curators, community artists, arts administrators, art critics and researchers. Many pursue portfolio careers that combine their own practice with teaching, curatorial work or arts writing. Leeds Arts University's dedicated arts education environment and its connections to the wider Leeds creative scene provide strong preparation for a professional life in the visual arts, and many graduates proceed to postgraduate study at MA level in fine art or related disciplines.