Transform your creative practice by engaging with print media on our Master’s course at Cambridge School of Art. Using the latest techniques, you'll work on your own projects in our world-class facilities, and get invaluable experience of exhibiting, curating and collaborating.
Course duration: 12 months full-time or 24 months part-time.
Trimesters 1-3: Tuesdays and Wednesdays (full-time); Wednesdays (part-time)
*Please note: In addition, you will be expected to work independently outside taught times for at least the equivalent amount of time.
Discover the vital contribution that printmaking has made to the language of contemporary art practice, and how recent technological advances have broadened its definition.
Much of your time will be spent independently researching and undertaking your own practice-based projects. You’ll receive technical inductions for the use of both traditional and emerging processes (including relief printing and intaglio, screen print, lithography, photo-based and digital media) and be free to experiment with, and combine, them in your creative work.
Throughout the course you’ll have support from experienced print and fine art practitioners, and benefit from working in a supportive and critically informed art school. Our connection with the MA Printmaking course at Camberwell College of Art creates opportunities for exchange crits and gives you the chance to build networks with fellow artists. And you'll get a window onto the professional art world through our visiting lecturers, field trips and links to galleries.
Our series of workshops, tutorials, seminars, critiques, presentations and lectures, will allow you to develop research skills that you’ll use on this course and in your future career. In addition, you’ll gain experience of other areas of professional practice including curating and critical writing.
Our links with local printmaking and art organisations, such as Cambridge Original Printmakers, the Curwen Print Study Centre, Aid & Abet, Changing Spaces, Wysing Arts Centre and Cambridge Artworks, will give you the chance to take part in portfolio reviews, live projects and professional exhibitions.
As well as preparing you for a successful career in creative practice, our course will equip you for many other roles. Our past students enjoy careers in further and higher education, professional print workshops, museum and gallery management, public arts projects, artist in residence schemes and fellowship opportunities, in the UK and overseas.
Or you might decide to continue on to a research degree, like our PhD Fine Art.
You’ll have access to events such as Creative Front Futures, which will give you a taste of different creative industries, and be able to take part in Fine Art Professional Practice and networking initiatives for our students and alumni.
Fortnightly lectures run by our Fine Art Research Unit (FARU) will give you a chance to hear artists and staff talk about their work, and engage in debates about art practice. Our recent speakers have included Phillip Allen, Juan Bolivar, Rebecca Fortnum, Danny Rolph, Hayley Newman, Günter Herbst, David Kefford, Cally Spooner, Tim Ellis, Andrew Grassie, Lilah Fowler, Jemima Brown, Caroline Wright and Matthew Derbyshire.
Visiting printmaking professionals have included Katherine Jones, Stephen Chambers, Sean Rorke, Rebecca Salter, Penny Brewill, Mike Taylor, Kate Palmer, Jo Love and Jane Dixon, Leo Brook and Amanda Couch.
On our core modules you’ll demonstrate your progress through your visual research outcomes and supporting evaluative statements, except for the Master’s Dissertation, for which you’ll submit a 6,000-word contextual essay.
You’ll work in our fully equipped print studios, with industry-standard facilities including intaglio, screen, relief, litho and photo print processes. You’ll also have access to our 3D workshops, laser cutting facilities, large format digital printer, photography studios and dark rooms, and computer suites for video production and digital imaging.
Studio teaching takes places in our print studio and MA Fine Art studios, which also act as lively hubs for our full- and part-time students in printmaking and fine art.
MA Visual Arts: Printmaking at Camberwell College of Arts encourages students to reflect on printmaking in its many contexts. The international success of our MA in Printmaking is due to how we explore this medium in its own right, as well as its relationship to wider contemporary practices. We respond to current debates about the role of skill and authorship in the creation of artworks, as well as the notion of the unique work of art.
What students can expect from the course:
- To take an innovative approach, using all forms of autographic printmaking; these include intaglio, lithographic, relief print, screen-printing, letterpress and computer generated processes
- To investigate and reconsider assumptions underlying the applications of autographic processes and new technologies
- Their programmes of study to place the practice of printmaking in both a contemporary critical context as well as a wider, historical perspective
- To research the content, materials and technical skills appropriate to their projects, and produce written as well as practical work exploring their chosen subject area and relationship to contemporary practice
- Visits to important print collections and participate in symposiums and talks with curators and international artist.
- To develop a project from proposal to final exhibition
Unit One – Research, Development and Practice
Students will explore, experiment and research to further develop their Project Proposals. This unit introduces students to pathway specific issues and topics, research methodologies and techniques. It aims to orientate students and their practice within the course, and develop their contextual, critical and research skills at the onset of their MA learning.
Unit Two – Reflection and Presentation
Resolution and presentation of students' work according to their Project Proposal. A symposium will provide the opportunity to present their research and provide further peer feedback. Students' practice at this stage should synthesise their practical, conceptual and professional abilities and they will be expected to consider their future practice, audience and context of their work in contemporary practice.
The intention and context of students' work will inform their decisions they will take regarding a final exhibition. Students' will also be expected to work collaboratively with their peers to actively plan, organise and install an exhibition as part of their continued Personal and Professional Development.
Led by Professor Jo Stockham, the Print programme is a two-year specialist MA course. Renamed from Printmaking in 2015, this change signals that the study of the expanded field of Print is equal to the making of prints as a series of medium specific choices. We explore the mediated image approached through a range of intellectual approaches provided by a diverse team of tutors, all practicing artists.
Access to world-class technical facilities in all print media means that we are able to both explore and expand the field of Print addressing the constant interplay between thinking and making, the image and technology. Students from a wide variety of backgrounds choose to study with us because of their interest in questions, which include, the nature of the copy, diagramming, appropriation, materiality of the image, the politics of print and print as a collaborative practice.
Artists’ books and web based work as forms of distribution and explorations of narrative structures are a growing aspect of the course. We are benefiting from the renewed interest in the circulation, reception and creation of multiple images due to the ubiquity of digital images and computing.
We are embedded in a network of international print publishers, archives and galleries. A publishing project and exhibiting work are an integral part of the course. The potential for collaboration and residency situations where making work is a form of exchange is core to many students and we help them prepare for making applications to such opportunities.
The aim of the programme is to enable students to work across a broad platform of media appropriate to their self defined ambitions and interests. By equipping graduates with experience of exhibiting, collaboration, editioning, lecturing, curating and a thorough critical engagement with a self defined body of work we aim to develop artists who understand the expressive nuances of different materials and forms of distribution in the expanded field of print. Evidence suggests they will be able to sustain themselves on graduation as exhibiting artists often engaged in related fields such as, teaching, publishing, curating and research.
An active research culture of staff, visiting artists, MPhil and PhD students is a core part of the programme and is shared through lectures, seminars, publications, presentations and exhibitions.
Alumni include, Andrea Buettner, Adam Dant, Mabe Bethonico, William Latham, Haris Epaminonda, Daniel Gustav Cramer, Christiane Baumgartner and Katsutoshi Yuasa.
The programme offers:
Our MA Illustration course encourages you to question the nature of your practice and its context and position relative to the creative industries.
This course will appeal to you if you're open to participating in a broad range of creative strategies, utilising traditional and digital methods.
These include drawing and printmaking, lens and time-based media, with ideas and concepts that might be realised through exhibition, publication or exciting new hybrid forms.
The course encourages you to engage imaginatively with illustration, in relation to both the academic subject and practice of illustration. A selection of our student's work is available to view in our gallery.
Students’ practice is considered within a global context and with an awareness of the emergence of new and innovative approaches that interrogate, challenge and advance traditional practice.
Graduates from the MA programme will be able to carve their own niche in an evolving market for visual material.
Students studying on the course come from a number of diverse backgrounds including Illustration, Graphic Design, Printmaking, Drawing, Photography and Painting. Others come from outside of art and design, having had experience across other subject disciplines, but demonstrating a passion for illustration.
The course is structured and delivered in order to encourage and support you in developing your own distinct visual language, recognising an expansive understanding of contemporary illustration through the exploration of relationships between illustrator as author, audience and context.
Ideas are developed through specific individual approaches to research into practice and reflective enquiry.This deeper understanding and commitment to practice assists students in identifying, exploring and achieving your future career aspirations.
The MA in Fine Art offers an exciting opportunity for students to expand and deepen their knowledge and practice. This dynamic programme will support you by engaging with the challenges inherent in building your artistic practice. It provides you with a framework within which you will experiment, work through personal investigations, and be encouraged to specialise. Lectures, seminars and critiques link practice and theory, and provide a forum for sharing and exploring perspectives. Applying critical reflection and locating your work within a contemporary environment of ideas, you will develop your practice to produce a substantial body of work.
You may work in any contemporary medium and will be able to take advantage of our facilities and expertise in painting, drawing, digital media, photography, video, sculpture, installation and printmaking. Critical studies form an integral part of the course, enabling you to contextualise studio practice in seminar papers and presentations.
The course emphasises practical exploration, supervised independent learning, reflection and critical evaluation. You’ll be encouraged to share your knowledge, experience and perceptions. The course promotes intellectual enquiry, a high level of practical and technical ability, and the acquisition of a professional skill set. Its aim is for graduating students to be fully prepared as competitive arts professionals.
Modules
You can opt for full-time study which involves day-time or evening sessions, or part-time study in evenings.
Assessment is 100% by coursework.
The course promotes intellectual enquiry, a high level of practical and technical ability, and the acquisition of a professional skillset. Through our expert guidance you will be supported in determining your own creative direction, enabling you to become the artist you want to be.
You will be supported in working in any contemporary medium and will benefit from access to our purpose built facilities and expertise in painting, drawing, digital media, photography, sculpture, installation and printmaking.
Lectures, seminars and group criticisms provide a forum linking practice, critique and theory. This will help you establish a theoretical context for your ideas.
The MA Fine Art is a broad, studio-based programme with an open and inclusive approach to fine art practice. The programme encourages both specialist and cross-disciplinary approaches enabling students to extend and deepen their knowledge and application of fine art practice.
The curriculum is structured on Practice as Research, through which specialist studio disciplines are developed within cultural, aesthetic and socio-political contexts supporting the creative exploration of ideas through practical skills, research methodologies, theoretical and analytical frameworks. This places individual practice at the centre of the programme. Studio-based modules run throughout the programme and maintain the dynamic interrelation between visual research, concepts and theory. Studio research can be developed within: painting, textiles, sculpture (including ceramics), printmaking and digital media.
Over the past few years, we’ve redeveloped both of our campuses so that you have the best facilities available for your degree. We pride ourselves on the quality of the learning environment we can offer our students.
The Art department are situated in the dedicated artOne building comprising outstanding studio and workshop facilities. It is an exciting place to study, providing a dynamic and supportive learning environment for the production of original new art work.
The well-equipped workshops and studios provide environments for you to create experimental, inventive and ambitious work. The main studio space in the purpose built artOne building provides individual studio spaces for all students as well as bookable spaces for installation, performance and projection work. If you are doing studio practice modules, you will be allocated a personal studio base in which you can carry out your self-directed projects and art work.
All students also have access to workshop areas and technical support in the key disciplines of the Fine Art programmes. The workshops reflect the range of options across the various degree programmes. A distinctive aspect of the department is that of individualized working areas in the studio space.
You will become part of a network of artists that will offer support and a challenging context in which to develop your work. Key to this community are fine art staff who, as practising artists, bring their knowledge and experience of a range of professional arts environments to the programme.
The staff team are linked to local, regional and national networks including galleries, museums, regional funding agencies and community based projects. Undergraduate and Postgraduate programmes have strong connections with Pallant House Gallery, Chichester Festival Theatre, Goodwood Sculpture Park and galleries in Portsmouth, Southampton, Brighton and London.
The wider arts community at the University of Chichester includes postgraduate and research students in MA Dance, Performance and Music and you will be able to experience the breadth of these practice based disciplines, and other academic research through research seminar programmes, presentations, theatre events and visiting speakers.
The course provides the opportunity to concentrate on a specific area of research.
Potential Careers
Recent students have worked on site-specific commissions, community arts projects, and work placements with local galleries and museums, residencies in schools, and even creating their own virtual gallery. The experience is invaluable in terms of working to time and budgetary constraints, and in dealing with the public.
Distinctive features of the course:
Optional modules:
To gain an MA students need to complete four out of five modules plus the Independent Exhibition. This is an independent research project, and is largely practical, culminating in a professional context exhibition.
All sessions are held at the University of Chichester’s Bishop Otter Campus. Full time students are given a studio space, and full and part time students have access to workshop facilities. All students benefit from access to large studio spaces during the summer months. Study contact sessions take place on Wednesday’s and Thursday’s across Semester 1 and 2 and the summer period.
Full time – 12 months (September to September).
Part time – 24 months (September to September)
Prepare for a career as a professional artist. Independently develop your practical work, research skills and critical thinking, with support from our experienced staff and visiting artists. Test out your ideas in a professional environment and gain invaluable experience of exhibiting, curation and collaboration.
Course duration: 12 months full-time or 24 months part-time.
Trimesters 1-3: Tuesdays and Wednesdays (full-time); Wednesdays (part-time)
*Please note: In addition, you will be expected to work independently outside taught times for at least the equivalent amount of time.
See the website: http://www.anglia.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/fine-art
Our Master’s course will allow you to investigate a range of approaches used in fine art, from painting, sculpture, and printmaking, to more contemporary media such as photography, video, digital media, installation, sound and performance.
You’ll spend much of your time working and researching independently - but you’ll also learn about recent theories, contexts and practices in lectures, seminars and one-to-one tutorials.
We’ll give you the chance to test out your ideas in a professional environment, and to pick up important transferable skills for your career through group and individual presentations and critiques, exhibiting, curation and critical writing.
Here at Cambridge School of Art, you’ll be supported by lecturers who are themselves experienced artists. So as well as having access to artists who are working across many disciplines at the forefront of contemporary art practice, you’ll receive invaluable advice and direction for your future career.
As well as preparing you for work as a practising artist, you’ll pick up skills and knowledge that will equip you for other roles. Our past students now enjoy careers in further and higher education, museum and gallery management, public arts projects, artist in residence schemes and fellowships opportunities, both in the UK and abroad.
Or you might decide to continue on to a research degree, like our PhD Fine Art.
Our links with local art organisations, such as Aid & Abet, Changing Spaces, Wysing Arts Centre and Cambridge Artworks, will give you the chance to take part in professional exhibitions, portfolio reviews and live projects.
You’ll also have access to events such as Creative Front Futures, which will give you a taste of the different creative industries, and be able to take part in Fine Art Professional Practice and networking initiatives for both students and alumni.
Our Fine Art Research Unit (FARU) runs fortnightly lectures that will give you a chance to hear contemporary artists and staff talk about their work, and engage in debates about art practice. Recent speakers have included Phillip Allen, Juan Bolivar, Rebecca Fortnum, Danny Rolph, Hayley Newman, Günter Herbst, David Kefford, Cally Spooner, Tim Ellis, Andrew Grassie, Lilah Fowler, Jemima Brown, Caroline Wright and Matthew Derbyshire.
On most of our core modules, you’ll demonstrate your progress through visual research outcomes supported by a written evaluative statement, except for the Master’s Dissertation where you’ll submit a 6,000-word contextual essay.
You’ll have the chance to experiment with many different art forms, making use of our MA studios, printmaking and 3D/sculpture workshops, photography dark rooms, and computer suites for video production and digital imaging. You’ll also have access to three brand new Mac suites with Adobe Creative Suite software, plus high-quality 27-inch monitors.
If you're a full-time student, you'll have an individual studio space to work in. If you're part-time, you'll need your own external studio facility, but may be able to negotiate some temporary on-site space for specific projects. Whether you're full-time or part-time, you'll be based in our MA studios and we'll encourage you to make full use of them both during and outside of formal teaching times. You can also arrange to use the studios on weekday evenings and at weekends during term-time.
Contemporary illustration practice has grown to encompass a broad range of ambitions and opportunities for image makers and storytellers. The growth of online digital cultures - and the impact of digital image creation on traditional image making - requires flexible and adaptable practitioners, and it provides unique opportunities for the entrepreneurial illustrator.
Our MA Illustration course offers you the chance to challenge the boundaries of illustration, both in its practice and its context, and is primarily concerned with the illustrated narrative. It offers you a creative and intellectual environment in which you can rigorously pursue a project of self-directed study, and produce a body of work on a topic of your interest within the field of illustration.
Our course enjoys a long tradition of original narrative and storytelling through images, reflecting staff expertise and practice in these areas. As a student here you'll get to explore narrative storytelling, authorship, self-publishing, book production and visual narratives through the development of a personal project.
This MA course supports you to develop your own independent voice and to identify an audience. You're encouraged to take a self-directed entrepreneurial approach, developing and exploring creative opportunities and options for your work. This entrepreneurial emphasis will be supported by access to specialist facilities such as digital media suites, photography, printmaking and bookmaking.
Our course also provides you with the opportunity for extended critical debate, a high degree of critical reflection and integration of theoretical and practical concerns as part of the realisation of an ambitious body of work. It will also promote in-depth, rigorously conducted research, to ensure you're able to contextualise your own work in relation to the leading edge practice in illustration.
Visiting lecturers and practitioners inform and cultivate professional development, encouraging you to question and debate. Recent visiting lecturers have included Graham Rawle, Olivier Kugler, Nick White, Luke Best, Mathew Richardson and Posy Simmonds.
Illustration at UCA Farnham has a long tradition of original narrative and storytelling through images, reflecting staff expertise and practice in these areas.
Students on MA Illustration also benefit from well-established industry connections.
Graduates from our MA Illustration course go on to establish careers in a diverse range of exciting areas, such as:
-Freelance illustration
-Self-publishing
-Artist practice
-Printmaking
-Curation
-Editing
-Animation
-Project management
-Education
-Design
-Digital imaging
-Web authoring
-Multi-media production.
Visit our Postgraduate Virtual Media Space to find out more about our courses, see what it's like to study at UCA and gain access to our campus virtual tours.
The curriculum of this programme is under review for the 2018/19 academic year. Programme structure and course availability is subject to change.
This programme encourages practices that are speculative and reflective, supporting work in a range of media. It is concerned with ways of learning that are experiential – embodied through and understood by the acquisition of a practice.
During the late 20th century, developments within visual art introduced new processes and situations, which resulted in an expanded concept of artistic practice.
Media-related disciplines supported by the programme include sculpture, painting and printmaking, photography, audio-visual and new media. The programme also encompasses approaches to practice that are non media-specific, including intermedia, time-based arts, performance, installation, public art and art writing.
You may complete the MA in one year, or continue on to the MFA. You will have access to a designated studio space and a wide range of studio equipment, technicians and resources, including printmaking, metal, wood, casting, painting, photography, reprographic and digital facilities.
Our students often work in groups across subject areas in the School of Art and collaborate throughout the year on critical, creative and curatorial projects. This gives you a unique opportunity to integrate the fields of art practice, art writing and curating, culminating in an exhibition of your own work or in a research project of your own design.
We regularly organise field trips and offer short residency and project opportunities with our local and international partners.
The programme also involves the theoretical study of this family of media and approaches, drawing on related fields and methods.
Students on this programme will benefit from studio-based learning in Edinburgh College of Art's (ECA) historic Lauriston Place campus, along with the exhibitions and events associated with a vibrant art college. The art college experience will be complemented by the University's extensive range of student support facilities, its libraries, student societies, and student accommodation.
Our purpose-built studios are adaptable, serving both as working studios and project and exhibition spaces. Our workshops and foundry provide excellent accommodation for working in wood, metal, mould-making, casting and carving and there are facilities for working with sound, digital imaging and video editing.
The programme develops from a broad to a specialist understanding of the technical resources and validating contexts in which artists work today, drawing inspiration and nourishment from the experience of our international student cohort.
This programme enables you to develop an ambitious art practice as well as providing you with the organisational and economic knowledge required to thrive as a self-employed artist. You will also be qualified to teach studio art in higher education and to work in the contemporary art sector.
The MFA program is dedicated to helping students understand both the making and theorizing of art against the background of the diverse intellectual environment of a major university, and within the context of local and international art communities. The MFA degree is also the standard qualifying degree for teaching visual arts at the post-secondary level. Most students are given the opportunity to teach foundation courses as Teaching Assistants, thus providing them valuable experience in visual arts instruction.
Students in the program may work in any area of contemporary art production including painting, drawing, printmaking, three-dimensional and installation work, photography, digital art, intermedia, video, performance, sound, or in any interdisciplinary form. The program does not include training in applied art, commercial art and design, graphic design, film or television.
Each MFA student receives his/her own private studio (approximately 250 square feet) and access to the department's extensive facilities including a state-of-the art Photo/Digital lab, Printmaking unit, and Workshop. MFAs participate in an intensive weekly studio seminar that is also a forum for critical discussions about leading issues in contemporary art, visual culture, and cultural theory. Students take additional academic coursework to enrich their particular focus, and present their Major Paper research and artwork to peers, faculty, and the public at their final oral presentation (occurring in the spring of their final year) and at a final critique (occurring during their graduation exhibition). Open Studios, interdepartmental critiques, and organised exhibitions showcase the students' art production and broaden their exposure to the local art scene and beyond.
Create your own story at the University of Hertfordshire’s School of Creative Arts!
