Course summary

Arts University Plymouth is an arts university for the 21st century, preparing students who are uniquely placed to provide creative solutions to the complex global challenges of a changing world. Formerly known as Plymouth College of Art, we were granted full university title in Spring 2022. We are now the city of Plymouth’s first and only specialist arts university, allowing us to offer our students a dynamic and unique learning experience. In May 2022 we were awarded the Best Small or Specialist University at the 2022 WhatUni Student Choice Awards, coming top in a list of well-respected specialist UK universities, based on unbiased and honest reviews from students across the UK, in a category that highlights the quality of our provision as a specialist creative university. On this course, designed to immerse you in a wide range of traditional and contemporary techniques, you will develop a distinct creative voice as a contemporary professional artist. Based in large, open-plan studios designed with lofted ceilings and windows that allow for northern exposure to natural light, you will be encouraged to develop an ambitious working practice through encounters with all three disciplines. Our tutors are all practising artists who bring unique, independent experience to the classroom and studio teaching. The course specialises in the embodied practice of painting, with the synergy of drawing and fine print together with colour as a conceptual and pedagogical practice. During your three years of study, a comprehensive series of technical workshops and material demonstrations provide a core component to the curriculum, fostering a hands-on, deep material knowledge that will directly inform the ideas, methods and idiosyncrasies of your emergent studio practice. We teach the six visual languages: tone, line, space, movement, shape and colour, enabling each student to express their own imagination and find their own voice, to become the painters, artists and printmakers of the next generation. Take advantage of the many cultural and community-based institutions located in and near Plymouth, providing you with opportunities to see and participate in timely exhibitions that increase your knowledge of the contemporary art world. Recent student trips have included visits to Tate Galleries in London and St Ives, the Barbara Hepworth Museum, Spike Island, Arnolfini, Hauser & Wirth and the Rabley Drawing Centre. Students on the course have travelled internationally to attend the Impact 10 printmaking conference in Santander, Spain, and have recently toured galleries and art fairs in Madrid, Berlin and Amsterdam. With active and ongoing university initiatives that help students develop relationships with the contemporary art world and curators, our students show their work in galleries in and near Plymouth, and have previously toured their degree shows at Second Floor Studios in London. Recent contributors to the programme include Turner Prize nominee Ciara Phillips, Freelands Foundation Creative Director painter and educator Dr Henry Ward, Sue Kennington, Sarah Hoskins, Josie Cockram (Royal Academy Schools alumni) and painter Nina Royle. Our students have gone on to establish successful art practices in Plymouth, Falmouth, St Ives, Exeter, Bristol, London and Europe.