It takes a rare and special ability to become a fine artist. You need both technical skill and creative insight to produce work that conveys an original perspective.
Our BA Fine Art degree course gives you the space, freedom and support to fully express your artistic vision. You'll have access to your own studio space and will work with the academic and technical staff in defining and developing your interests. You'll work across disciplines and capacities, including: Process and material-based learning, painting, video, printmaking, photography, drawing, performance, sculpture, public art, participatory and inclusive practices, woodwork, metalwork, ceramics, bronze casting, and sewing.
You will develop skills through engaging with traditional materials and contemporary technologies within a studio practice culture. Both a strong art historical and broader contextual view of your work is a crucial as part of your evolution as an artist.
Through blending material exploration, practice and philosophy, you will explore the intricate connections between theoretical and conceptual ideas and artistic intention. You will gain insights from diverse interdisciplinary contexts, engage with critical theory and learn to apply them through your work.
Be ambitious, disciplined and motivated in your practice and you'll graduate with the skills, confidence and critical ability to continue your journey as a professional artist.
Course Content
As you progress through the course you'll develop both your technical and creative skills through a range of material exploration and use of media. You'll have access to your own studio space and will work with the academic staff in defining and developing your interests and practices in numerous capacities, including:
- Critical thinking / critical judgement (Immersion in both the historical and contemporary art practice / thinking)
- Process & Material Based Learning: (painting, video, animation, printmaking, photography, drawing, performance, plaster, robotics, public art, participatory and inclusive practices, woodwork, metal work, ceramics, product design, bronze casting, sewing)
- Individual Responsibility / Self Motivation
- Independence / Confidence / Imagination/ Play
- Enquiry driven speculative practice
There are frequent opportunities to interact with practitioners and external partners. You can choose to learn how professional practices operate through industry placements. Explore what entrepreneurship has to offer the contemporary artist. Or study abroad – taking inspiration from different cultures and people.
Your final year is spent producing work for exhibition. You'll also complete a business plan, dissertation, or critical review – it's your choice, depending on where you want to take your artistic career next.
Year One
Subject: Introduction to concept, process & practice - 40 credits
Subject: Introduction to independent studio practice - 20 credits
Dive in with material practice projects, designed to get you thinking about your individual studio practice. With support from your tutors, you'll start to build your critical thinking – and become familiar with the variety of processes you have to work with. Drawing is the primary means of gaining an understanding of your relationship to the world and is central to the study of fine art. By joining the directed drawing programme, you will develop ideas, communicate complex ideas and solve conceptual problems.
Research Basics - 20 credits*
This module aims to develop students' core academic research skills including locating sources, evaluating credibility, and analysing information. It will provide the foundations from which students will cultivate their confidence to engage in theoretical discourse and idea-driven dialogues which will be required throughout their undergraduate studies.
Interdisciplinary Understanding - 40 credits
This module aims to introduce you to the principles of Interdisciplinary working: collaborative working, critical thinking and reflection. Projects within the module will challenge you to work with another discipline to explore a societal and cultural theme or challenge.
Year Two
Subject: Practice-Based Research - 40 credits
You will begin to explore your nascent artistic position through an in-depth study of key artworks within the cannon of fine art that you have a personal affinity with from a museum, gallery or private collection, with this as the focus of your research and the catalyst that will help you develop your practice and position. Alongside tutorials, lectures and group critiques, you'll spend time in the studio – as well as visiting galleries, museums and other national centres of excellence.
21st Century Challenges - 40 credits
The 21st Century Challenges module builds upon the introduction to Interdisciplinary problem-solving developed at level 4 to continue to refine, and begin to apply, your skillsets through real-world projects and live briefs. Projects will tackle 21st Century Challenges to develop your leadership, collaboration, future literacy/critical thinking skillsets.
Real-World Contexts - 20 credits
The Real-World Contexts module challenges you to apply the situated awareness and future-thinking skills to deploy your own practice in the creation or promotion of value for a variety of external stakeholders and communities.
Research Proposal - 20 credits*
The Research Proposal offers you an opportunity to strengthen your research skills, consolidate your research experience and orientate your level 6 contribution around an enquiry of your choosing that is inspired by your learning across all modules at level 4 and 5. This research proposal will be used to continue your personal and professional development at level 6 where you will identify a route for your own enquiry.
Year Three
Subject: Consolidation - 40 credits
In your final year you'll reach a professional standard and define the parameters of your own practice. You'll refine practical and theoretical skills and use them to create original pieces that really make an impact. You'll put your work into context and explore its potential through open critiques and seminars with your tutors and fellow artists.
Positioning in Practice - 20 credits
The module aims to support your readiness in developing your unique professional career. It will embed attributes reflective of the requirements of real-world practice aligned to your specialist discipline.
You will have the opportunity to reflect upon how your experiences over the last 3 years have allowed you to position yourself as a professional in preparation for graduate level work, continued study, research, and entrepreneurial ventures.
Contribution - 40 credits*
Your practice is underpinned by your knowledge. Demonstrate your research and analysis skills in your final research submission, where you explore ideas in both written and practical forms.
* modules available through the medium of Welsh
Learning & Teaching
From the outset, you will gain hands-on experience in practical studio sessions and workshops – developing your core material skills. Lectures, lead by members of the academic staff, will broaden your theoretical understanding of your field, whilst smaller, targeted seminars are designed to provide guidance for meeting more individual intellectual and practical demands.
All programmes within CSAD are delivered through a studio-based approach to learning.
Studio-based learning provides an authentic learning environment which fosters cohort level community building, peer learning whilst being authentic to the demands of the individual disciplines. All studio spaces are bespoke to the needs of the disciplines within which students will receive a variety of learning opportunities including:
Group seminars, group critiques (crits) & presentations, one to one tutorials, technical workshops, peer learning, independent guided learning.
Students take a significant lead in their studies, develop their own research focus and expertise base and actively engage with the process of assessment and the manner in which their individual expertise is expressed and tested.
Students will be supported as they work autonomously such that they are able to generate significant and unique learning through rigorous, self-directed and collaborative practice.
Assessment
Throughout the duration of your studies, you will be evaluated on three main criteria, which underpin all of the disciplines being taught at CSAD:
SKILLS: The practical, technical and conceptual skills you acquire during your course.
CONTEXT: Your understanding and knowledge of broader intellectual context within which your discipline and work is located. This includes historical, environmental and ethical issues and will often be explored in your 'Theory and Context' modules.
IDEAS: Your understanding of intellectual and creative ideas from within and beyond your discipline; plus your ability to acquire new concepts and form new ideas. Ideas will be explored in your written work, as well as being evident in your practical progress.
Each of these criteria is given equal weighting during the assessment process. That is to say that they are seen as equally important and critical to your development; an emphasis which is designed, for example, to enable a more well-rounded skill set from a student who may be skilled technically, but weak in generating ideas, or a student with much creative flair who may struggle to hone a broad concept into a strong, individual design.
We provide a number of ways for you to track your progress en route to submitting your work for marking. Understanding that the emphases will revolve around the core areas of skills, context and ideas, you will also become familiar with the structured assessment form used by your tutors and learn to relate to your work back to the intended learning outcomes of each brief.
The main types of formative assessment are; academic (feedback from your tutors); peer (from your course-mates or project partners); and self-assessment (which is your own critique, in light of other forms of feedback). You won't just be receiving feedback at the end of a brief, however – your tutors will often assess your progress as your work develops, providing formative feedback at crucial moments where it is hoped to encourage you to take risks, maintain your motivation or shape-up your ideas ahead of deadline.
Employability & Careers
Whilst your learning is designed to develop you into a rounded and capable artist and intellectual, your curriculum is similarly structured with your potential in mind.
The emphasis that will have been placed upon your work ethic, both creatively and academically, is matched with significant focus on real world experience; from building contacts and undertaking placements to live briefs and, should you choose so, support in forming your own business.
There are frequent opportunities to interact with practitioners and external partners, galleries, artists and creative practitioners. You can choose to learn how professional practices operate through industry placements, and explore what entrepreneurship has to offer contemporary artists. As well as becoming professional self-employed artists, our graduates can go on to set up galleries, become curators, theatre/set makers, teachers, fashion designers, technicians or undertake further study.
You can elect to take a route through your second and final years of studies where you can engage with businesses or prepare to launch your own for the moment you graduate. In your final year, rather than submit a dissertation, you have the option of devising a detailed business plan.
Throughout your time at CSAD, you will be meeting and hearing from professionals within your industry, honing your skills and ideas for commercial and professional advantage. Cross-disciplinary projects will prepare you for teamwork later on, whilst live briefs will prepare you for deadlines and the demands of tight specifications.
Entry Requirements & How to Apply
Typical Offers
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Tariff points: 96-120
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Contextual offer: See our
contextual offers page.
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GCSE: Preferably five GCSEs at Grade C / 4 or above to include English Language / Welsh First Language, Mathematics / Mathematics – Numeracy.
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English Language Requirement: Academic IELTS 6.0 overall with at least 5.5 in all elements, or equivalent.
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A level: Minimum three A levels. No specific subjects required. Welsh Baccalaureate – Advanced Skills Challenge Certificate considered as a third subject.
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BTEC National / Cambridge Technical Extended Diploma: MMM-DDM
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T Level: No specific subjects required.
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Access to Higher Education Diploma: No specific subjects required.
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International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma: 24 points. No specific subjects required.
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Irish Leaving Certificate: No specific subjects required. Higher level subjects only considered with a minimum grade H4.
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Scottish Advanced Highers: No specific subjects required.
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Other requirements: Successful
interview and portfolio review. Applicants will be required to submit a digital portfolio.
Combinations of the above qualifications are accepted if they meet our minimum requirements. If your qualifications aren’t listed, please contact
Admissions or refer to the
UCAS Course Search.
Further information on Overseas qualifications can be found
here.
If you are a mature applicant, have relevant experience or
RPL that you would like us to consider, please contact Admissions.
How to Apply
Further information on how to apply can be found
here.
Tuition Fees, Student Finance & Additional Costs
For up to date information on tuition fees and the financial support that may be available whilst at university, please refer to www.cardiffmet.ac.uk/fees.
Undergraduate costs of study in CSAD
Materials
CSAD provides a variety of basic materials. These enable students to develop their competence in a range of skills and demonstrate their technical ability. Materials needed in unusual quantities, or those that are specialised, expensive or unusual are at the student’s expense. Advice will be given about how ‘unusual’ is defined, which materials are deemed to be ‘expensive’, and examples given of what is viewed to be ‘unusual’. CSAD students often elect to spend on materials they prefer to work with, including sketchbooks and pens, as well as specialist equipment of their own choosing.
In the main, no charges are made for the use of equipment, with the exception of some specialist high end equipment such as the Mimaki and 3D printers. Access to
Cardiff FabLab is subject to student membership; it offers reduced fees for student use.
For further information about additional course costs, including fees, equipment requirements and other charges for each undergraduate programme, please visit
www.cardiffmet.ac.uk/additionalcosts.
Field trips and visits
Field trips that are part of core learning will be paid for by the School. Additional visits are occasionally arranged which are optional and where the students may be asked to share the costs. The costs of study abroad, including exchanges, placements and projects are the responsibility of the individual student.
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