MA Belas Artes

The MA Fine Art course at City & Guilds of London Art School focuses on a deep exploration of your own practice and its research territories and critical frameworks. Whether you are continuing after recently graduating in Fine Art or returning to study after some years as a practising artist (or from working in another related field), our aim is to help you to move beyond your current position, to exceed your expectations. We don’t believe in a ‘house style’; this is an Art School where your ambitions will be interrogated and supported and the end of year MA exhibition consistently demonstrates the distance our students have travelled through engagement in this intensive course.

This one-year full-time or two-year part-time course is validated by Birmingham City University’s School of Art; regular checks by the Quality Assurance Agency and our external examiners guarantee our consistently high standards and results.

Content and Structure

The Course runs from September to September, twelve months for full-time students and over 2 years for part-time students. Full-time students are based in a large well lit studio spaces in the Art School, opposite Kennington tube station, while part-time students are expected to have their own studio base with access to our workshops and other facilities. Part-time students are allocated summer studio spaces in their final year leading up to the MA shows when the final module is taken at a full-time pace. They may also be able to work in studios at the Art School at the end of their first year.

The main objective of the course is to both challenge and support you to identify, develop and refine your individual practice. Evaluation and review through group and individual discussion with a wide range of tutors enable you to identify critical models and areas of research appropriate to your work. The course comprises three main areas of activity; studio practice, professional practice and critical aesthetics.

Studio teaching focuses on contextualisation, process into practice and realisation. Tutorials, group critiques and both peer and tutor-led events and sessions set out to equip you with the practical and theoretical knowledge and experiences necessary for the development of an ambitious body of work, concluding in a public exhibition.

Professional Practice workshops, visits and seminars delivered by artists, critics, gallerists and other art world professionals will help you to critique approaches and construct your own strategies for professional practice to sustain your art practice in the future.

Critical Aesthetics Seminars run alongside studio discussion and consider historic precedents and contemporary practices, theories and debates, supporting you to develop a framework for your research that will form the basis for the Critical Model Dissertation that explores key themes related to your practice. You will be supported by a personal dissertation supervisor, a member of the Art Histories team one of our experts.

Entry Requirements

Applicants for MA Fine Art are normally expected to have achieved or be expected to achieve a BA (Hons) Degree in Fine Art or a related subject.

Applicants who can demonstrate equivalent prior professional experience will also be considered.

Applicants who do not speak English as a first language will be required to provide evidence of achieving the equivalent of the International English Language Testing Service (IELTS) score of 6.5 or above, with a minimum of 5.0 in all four areas.

Selection criteria

We select applicants according to their potential and ability to demonstrate to a high level that they are able to:

• Fulfil the entry requirements,
• Demonstrate commitment and motivation to the subject and the course,
• Explore, articulate and develop ideas,
• Creatively research information and visual material to support ideas,
• Demonstrate a range of appropriate skills and technical abilities,
• Communicate ideas visually, verbally and in writing,
• Self-direct and evaluate their own work.

Duration

• 1 year full-time
• 2 years part-time

For more information, please visit our website.

Welcome to City & Guilds of London Art School, a not-for-profit, specialist higher education institution dedicated to teaching and inspiring the next generation of creative professionals. We provide an important alternative to other models of art and craft higher education in the UK.

All of our courses have a proven track record and are widely respected. We offer undergraduate and postgraduate courses in contemporary Fine Art (BA (Hons) and MA), Conservation of cultural objects (BA (Hons) and MA), and Historic Carving (Diploma and Postgraduate Diploma), as well as a Foundation Diploma in Art and Design. Please visit the individual programme pages to find out more about our courses.

While our fees are in line with standard UK degrees, we have a commitment to high levels of contact time with tutors, all of whom are active professionals. We also offer a significant number of bursaries and scholarships to help students fund their studies, thanks to a wide range of generous benefactors who recognise the Art School’s commitment to excellence. Students on our BA (Hons) course may be eligible for government-funded student loans.

TEACHING

Our staff to student ratios are generous, and teaching on all courses takes place across the week. Teaching is conducted by artists and practitioners at the top of their professional fields, who collectively provide a varied and dynamic range of expertise and viewpoints. The specialist nature of the Art School means we can focus on excellence and provide the one-to-one attention our subjects require. We believe in curiosity, ambition and learning through making. Every student is encouraged and supported to exceed their own expectations.

The education we offer is both broad and deep. We combine skills-based teaching with contextual Art Histories lectures and seminars that employ London’s museums and galleries as a crucial resource for regular targeted study trips. Drawing is fundamental to all of our courses with a dedicated Drawing Studio open to all, while the fruitful cross-pollination of subjects helps students to develop a profound understanding of their practice.

LOCATION AND FACILITIES

We have been at our Kennington site since 1879, which now comprises a Georgian terrace and purpose-built Victorian studios located opposite Kennington Tube station, together with large flexible studio spaces for the Foundation Diploma in a neighbouring 1930s ex-warehouse building. We have London’s galleries and museums within easy reach, with the National Gallery just a few stops away and both the East End galleries and South Kensington museums just a 20-minute tube journey away. This area of South London is fast becoming a cultural quarter with Damian Hirst’s Newport Street Gallery, Gasworks, Beaconsfield and numerous other galleries within a short walk. Our relationship network with cultural organisations, museums and galleries is extensive and both local (London) and global, including partnerships in Venice, Tokyo and Berlin.

We recognise the centrality of the studio as a space for creative endeavour, analysis and experimentation, and students are allocated dedicated workspaces which support their intensive, focused and full-time practice. Each area of workspace is devised with the student’s practice in mind whether that is a high ceilinged artists’ studio with natural north light, or a conservation research lab. In addition, students have access to expert- run specialist resources and workshops, including the drawing studio, print room, wood workshop, casting workshop, glass workshop, Sackler Library and IT studio, as well as access to smaller specialist facilities such as a foundry, ceramics kilns and a photographic darkroom.

SUPPORT AND COMMUNITY

We operate on a human scale with approximately 230 students and 80+ teaching staff. This enables us to work with our students as distinct and important members of our lively and engaging creative community. We care about individual progress and stay in active communication with our alumni, many of whom are leaders in their fields. Students also benefit from collaborations with leading heritage, creative and art-related institutions and initiatives, which provide opportunities for voluntary work experience, commissioning and showcasing student work.

For more information, please visit our website.