Discover your artistic potential on a course at the forefront of contemporary fine art practice. We give you time, space and encouragement to explore, experiment and emerge as a confident practising artist.
Discover your artistic potential on a course at the forefront of contemporary fine art practice.
Join us to work with leading artists and educators in developing your creativity through experimentation with media, materials and ideas to emerge as a confident practising artist. You will develop your individual artistic practice in our outstanding modern studios, working within and across a wide range of artistic disciplines. Our tutors are highly respected and internationally renowned artists, researchers and educators who will inspire and enthuse you. We will equip you with the professional skills to fulfil your ambitions as a practising artist or to pursue careers in fields ranging from community arts to curation.
Top20for Art**Guardian University Guide 2020
Watch our students create interactive sculptures in Ilam park near Ashbourne.
All students engage in creating conceptually challenging art that pushes the boundaries of personal expression. What makes our programme unique is the emphasis we place on ‘making’ skills in developing a studio practice regardless of the discipline engaged in. A key strength of the programme is having an intake of 30 students per year in order to ensure we have a close-knit community of art students that can be fully supported. It is because of this close support that we have excellent retention, high numbers of good degrees, and positive student feedback.
We feature in the top 15 in The Guardian University Guide 2020for art and have achieved over 90% satisfaction for 4 consecutive years. This isbased on criteria such as students’satisfaction with course content, teaching and feedback as well as the employment track record of our graduates. Our graduates are in work or further study within six months of completing this course (HESA 2016).
A significant part of this course is spent in our modern studios where you explore your own individual ideas and experiment with different working methods, materials and processes. We provide you with your own dedicated and permanent studio space from which you will work throughout your time on the course.
The wide-ranging facilities on offer encourage you to explore a variety of paths in your artistic practice – everything from painting, printmaking, photography, sculpture and installation to sound, film and video, digital media and performance. You have access to resources such as our industry standard Apple Mac suite, a large printmaking studio, darkrooms, music studios, and workshops for large-scale projects involving plaster, ceramics, wood and metal.
We offer an outstanding specialist Art and Design Library, a bureau for professional fine art printing, and a digital media equipment centre from which you can borrow industry-level video, film and photography equipment.
Visiting Professor Yan Wang gives a demonstration of Chinese portrait painting with BA Fine Art student Richard as a model.
Facilities
All art and design courses are based at our Markeaton Street site where modern, purpose built studios and labs provide a modern creative space for our arts students. Markeaton Street encompasses Chandos Pole Street (home to our Fashion and Textiles courses) and Britannia Mill (home to Fine Arts). Students on any of our theatre related courses also get to study at Derby Theatre, and Dance students study at Deda.
Markeaton Street is a 15 minute walk from Kedleston Road, and is serviced by regular free site shuttle buses.
The Fine Art Studios are a bustling creative environment. Each of us is given a space directly appropriate for our artistic needs. There are also workshops in everything from analogue photography to casting in bronze.
This module introduces you to the nature of the fine art studio – its culture, underpinning philosophies and work ethos. You will begin to learn these key ingredients of fine art practice through engagement with guided practical and exploratory studio-based activities. Emphasis will be placed on how to initiate creative practice from given starting points within an outlined workshop framework.
Media and materials will be explored as part of this process, both as investigations into deepening studio practice and as a set of discrete technical based workshops. You will be encouraged to reflect on your work and begin to understand how to draw on a wide variety of sources as a means of underpinning and extending this.
You will begin to look at others’ fine art practices as a means of informing the development of your ideas and studio work.
You will begin to clarify your emergent studio practice through self-initiated and self-directed research into areas of interest, both in terms of potential themes and concepts you wish to express, and practical ways and means of doing this. You will use this module to test out workshop media, process explorations undertaken in the Introduction to Studio Practice module, by applying these to areas of developing practice.
Reflection on your own and others’ work will continue to develop, with the placing of your practice in wider historical, social and artistic contexts.
By the end of the module you should have the beginnings of a coherently developing practice within an area that potentially forms the basis for future developments.
In this module, you will be introduced to mixed / multi-media and site-specific practices within the field of contemporary fine art, which begin to explore varying methods of working within differing contexts. As part of this, the potential for group work will be explored.
You will be required to make a personally initiated exploration of given areas from technical, theoretical, contextual, conceptual and creative perspectives. Extending your choice of areas of media development and how work is sited will challenge you to broaden and deepen your ongoing studio practice.
In this module, you will begin to learn how to locate contemporary fine art practice-based course material. This will primarily be through looking to external sources and documenting this in notebooks/sketchbooks.
Tutors will guide this sourcing and the research will be underpinned through class-based delivery of art theory. This is designed to enable an awareness of contemporary fine art practices and consider your own emergent practice in relation to this. Notation of primary and secondary source material in notebooks/sketchbooks will move toward more critical articulation through a piece of writing.
Drawing on studio work articulated at the conclusion of Level 4 you will develop your visual language and develop your practice to begin building a personal creative voice.
You will identify the beginnings of a clearly expressed critical framework establishing your area of studio practice within the broad field of contemporary fine art. There will be further investigation and experimentation in your chosen area of media development as a means of developing technical and conceptual aspects. An ability to self-initiate, source appropriate materials and technical approaches is essential to this module.
This module will deepen work outlined in the Locating Practice module, into a clearly articulated and coherent whole. There will be a development of a body of work that shows clear analysis of areas of concern and synthesis into a visual language, through exploration of appropriate forms – allied to ongoing risk-taking. Through a refinement of your personal self-critical voice, you will develop the ability to identify areas of weakness and find strategies for overcoming them.
There will be a sense of resolution in the work that forms the basis for refinements to come at Level 6. There will be a further investigation and experimentation in your chosen area of media development as a means of reinforcing technical and conceptual aspects. A deepening consideration of appropriate tactics of exhibition and installation of own work will be essential.
This module will challenge you to continue the development of your studio practice within an external professional context. The focus will be on a choice of media, methods and materials which will help extend your ongoing practice, in relation to an external context.
You will be encouraged to consider the imaginative possibilities of working in and from the landscape, gallery, museum or other site-specific location. You will be encouraged to develop your notions of site-specificity and appropriate working practices relating to collaborations with host institutions as part of your developing practice.
Additionally, this module will provide you with the opportunity to relate your academic knowledge and vocational skills to the professional work environment.
Stemming out of studio practice, and through sourcing external references you will locate your developing studio practice within current contemporary fine art practices. This will build on methodologies engaged in at Level 4 where notebook/sketchbook work will be the primary resource into which source material, reflections and critical analyses will be formulated.
Class-based sessions will continue to underpin the theoretical dimension of the study. Critical reflection and a coherent piece of writing will be synthesised from the ongoing reflections in notebooks/sketchbooks.
You will initiate, develop and resolve a sustained studio-based practice of clear personal inquiry. You will demonstrate a critically clear intention as to the direction of the work, with ongoing refinement of a deepening conceptualisation and sophisticated use of media, materials and processes, with clarity of the connections between these. You will demonstrate your development of aesthetic awareness and critical appreciation of the work of others in relation to own practice to a high degree.
In the second half of the module you will synthesize elements in the resolution of a body of work that clearly articulates your personal practice at a professional level. This work will provide the positioning for future potential developments and demonstrate high levels of sustained independent practice involving initiative, confidence, critical analysis, self-organization and risk-taking. Your practice will be clearly sited within a theoretical framework, refining further skills of analysis, evaluation and problem solving, conceptual thinking and technical ability. The outcome of this synthesis will be presented to professional standard in a final exhibition.
This module stems out of professional development work undertaken through ongoing studio practice modules at Levels 4 and 5 in respect of vocational training for the professional fine artist, including the examination of the place of the artist and the artwork in modern mediated culture.
You will develop a working knowledge of the presentation skills needed to negotiate a place for individual work in wider contexts. You will gain an understanding of means of presenting own work professionally in a public context with regards to applications for projects to be considered within the creative industries.
You will be encouraged to make informed and critical judgements of individual skills in relation to self-promotion within contemporary Visual Art practice and personal career aspirations. Instruction will be given into tactics of self-promotion: CVs, artist’s statements, professional visual reproduction of studio work and letters of application.
This module requires you to undertake a critical inquiry into your practice as an emerging artist. You will investigate key aspects of your work in relation to the wider field of international contemporary and/or historical art. By situating your own practice alongside those of artists who share similar preoccupations, and within the critical discourses in which such work has been interpreted and evaluated, you will be better placed to identify and articulate what is original and distinct about your own.
You are expected to engage critically with the ideas of acknowledged cultural authorities – artists, critics, curators, theorists, historians, philosophers, and so on – in order to explain, justify and critique the aims and methods of your art practice.
Your inquiry will expand your knowledge of art history, criticism and theory, and help you develop the language and skills needed to locate and explain your practice in the professional art world. In running alongside your level 6 studio-based modules, ideas prompted by your inquiry will be able to feed back into the development of your studio practice, enhancing its quality by deepening your awareness of the discursive field in which you are active. Assessment is by two coursework assignments: an oral presentation and a formal written study.
Please note that our modules are subject to change - we review the content of our courses regularly, making changes where necessary to improve your experience and graduate prospects.
Open Days
Register your interest for a future Open Day and we'll be in touch as soon as we are able to welcome you on campus.
One of the strengths of Fine Art at Derby is the limit on the number of places, which enables us to focus on the needs of each individual in a smaller cohort where everyone is devoted to working as an artist.
You learn through studio workshops, group and individual tutorials, seminars and lectures. These are supported by a vibrant and diverse programme of visiting artists who will update you on latest developments within the cultural industries.
Each year of the course, you will have the chance to visit a cultural centre in Europe or the USA, as well as national galleries and museums. You could also undertake site-specific projects, including residentials, in the nearby Derbyshire Peak District.
Throughout the course, there is ample opportunity to exhibit your work or take part in prestigious competitions. Our students are regularly offered artist residencies at home and abroad and have gained coveted places at events such as the Students’ International Biennale.
The culmination of your degree will be a major public exhibition where you can showcase your work to influential figures from the art world, prospective employers and the wider public.
You will be assessed on your studio work through exhibitions, formal presentations of developmental and resolved work, and your contributions to individual tutorials, group critiques and seminars. There will be some assignments and essay work to submit for your theoretical studies.
Fine Art studios
As a Fine Art student, you will have a permanent base within the recently refurbished Fine Art studios at the historic Britannia Mill site.
Every year students from the School of Arts celebrate their time at University by showcasing their work at an end of year Degree Show at Markeaton Street and across the City of Derby. The Show usually runs throughout June and is a fantastic opportunity for potential employers, friends, family, industry and members of the public to see exciting creations by the next generation of artists, designers, creators and makers from Derby. The Show takes the form of:
Your personal academic tutor will work with you to help you get the most out of your time at university. Having someone to talk to about your academic progress, your university experience and your professional aspirations is hugely valuable. We want you to feel challenged in your studies, stretched but confident to achieve your academic and professional goals.
Craig Fisher is Programme Leader for BA (Hons) Fine Art. He is a practicing artist whose current research is concerned with exploring the pictorial, sculptural and ‘site specific’ boundaries of art practice.
Access to HE Diploma 60 credits: 45 at level 3 with a minimum of Dist: 15 Merit: 24 Pass: 6
We usually consider an A-level in General Studies as a supplementary qualification. A good application/performance will be taken into account if you do not meet the criteria/offer conditions.
Our entry requirements for this course should be read together with the University's general entry requirements, which details subjects we accept, alternative qualifications and what we're looking for at Derby.
Academic Achievement Scholarship
We’re offering eligible students a £1,000 scholarship to celebrate your hard work and success.
* The fees stated above are for the 2019/20 academic year; fees for 2020/21 have not yet been confirmed by the UK government. We will update this information as soon as it is available.
Full-time students applying to start in September should apply for this course through UCAS or you can apply directly to the University for an undergraduate course if you’re not applying to any other UK university in the same year.
Full-time students applying to start in September should apply for this course through UCAS or you can apply directly to the University for an undergraduate course if you’re not applying to any other UK university in the same year.
We will nurture your artistic and creative independence, ensuring that you graduate as a self-motivated, resourceful and versatile fine art practitioner. Many of our students go on to become long-term practising artists – undertaking residencies, opening studios, exhibiting nationally and internationally, and lecturing.
The skills you develop will be valuable across the creative economy so – apart from furthering your development as a practising artist – you could progress to careers in areas such as curatorship, art therapy, community arts or teaching.
If you would like to set up your own creative business, look no further than our incubation unit – Banks Mill – which offers studio workspace and business development activities. You’ll become part of a vibrant and thriving community of artists, designers and makers.
Our graduates also regularly choose to advance their knowledge on Masters programmes nationally and internationally, including the MA Fine Art at Derby.
Fine Artist Paul Cummins is a University of Derby graduate who has gone on to curate one of the most memorable WWI exhibitions, Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red.
Contact us
If you need any more information from us, eg on courses, accommodation, applying, car parking, fees or funding, please contact us and we will do everything we can to help you.
Like most universities, we operate extended teaching hours at the University of Derby, so contact time with your lecturers and tutors could be anytime between 9am and 9pm. Your timetable will usually be available on the website 24 hours after enrolment on to your course.
Additional costs and optional extras
We’re committed to providing you with an outstanding learning experience. Our expert teaching, excellent facilities and great employability prepare you for your future career. As part of our commitment to you we aim to keep any additional study costs to a minimum. However, there are occasions where students may incur some additional costs.
Included in your fees
Industry speakers - The programme benefits from a visiting speaker per week
Specialist equipment and access to a range of 2D/3D making workshops (printmaking, ceramics, sculpture, wood / metal
Basic studio equipment - starter packs for introductory workshops (e.g. Cartridge Paper, charcoal, plaster, clay, printmaking consumables, blank journal)
Participation in University Degree Show - including the physical building of the exhibition space
Canvas for painting as needed (usually 2 x £70 rolls of canvas per year are provided for those who require this)
One mandatory study visit in UK (1 in Year 1) cost of coach and booking venue Mandatory involvement with an external agency as part of 'Extended Contexts II' module. Either Ilam (bed and board for 4 days / three nights), Rolls Royce site visit and access to curator, Derby Museum and Art Gallery plus work with lead curators
Additional access to wider University Arts’ facilities including equipment loan store and other facilities, such as digital print workshops
Mandatory costs not included in your fees
Boots if working in wood/metal, approx. £30
Approx. £100 per year for printing research material for journal work
4 x £5 journals per year (£60 over 3 years)
International trip (Approx. £500)
Individual Practice - Toward the end of Year 3 this can range from £100 - £1000 depending on the activity
Please note: Our courses are refreshed and updated on a regular basis. If you are thinking about transferring onto this course (into the second year for example), you should contact the programme leader for the relevant course information as modules may vary from those shown on this page.
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