Fine Art - Painting and Printmaking

BA (Hons) Fine Art at the Glasgow School of Art prepares students for the future, whether you want to pursue careers as artists, in arts education, writing, curation or other creative areas. The programme seeks to create assured and specialist fine art graduates with individual and creative identities, prepared for employment, self-employment and postgraduate study.

The ethos of the School of Fine Art emphasises creative dialogue and celebrates the diverse experiences and perspectives of the students and staff who make up our community. The programme embraces practices and histories from all over the world, whilst also being deeply rooted in the vibrant artistic potential of Glasgow, recognising its significant contribution to the cultural landscape of Scotland and the UK, as well as its international reach. Glasgow’s rich cultural and artistic heritage will inform the work you make. You will test your work in a public context through engaging with some of the city’s numerous cultural spaces and venues. Designed to build confidence, these external events and exhibitions enable you to explore how your practice can engage audiences and reach new publics. The city will animate and help drive your practice and you will contribute to the way Glasgow is continually enlivened by artists, musicians and other creatives who choose to live, study and work professionally in the city.

Painting and Printmaking at GSA reflects the complex and changing conditions, ethics and currencies of art-making, responding to new ideas. An awareness of histories and applications of painting and printmaking alongside contemporary debate are all fundamental to our programme of study, which acknowledges and critiques our disciplines’ legacies, and prioritises experiment and innovation. The programme encompasses a range of approaches to our disciplines and proposes expanded ways of making and thinking.

Running throughout all four stages of the programme is a series of interdisciplinary credit-bearing courses designed to deepen your critical awareness, allow opportunities for cross disciplinary working and extend the set of influences that help underpin your practical enquiry. These include the Fine Art Critical Studies (FACS) courses which bring together students from other departments to research and discuss key ideas that inform the way art is made, received and understood. Your FACS courses are geared towards cultivating your intellectual curiosity, engaging you with different ways to perceive, explain, and understand how meaning is made through critical theory and artistic practices.

The BA (Hons) Fine Art programme is led by a team of dedicated practicing artists, writers, curators and researchers and nurtures the development of a dynamic, inclusive and supportive learning environment. A range of learning styles and approaches to making work are supported and there is significant level of choice in how, and the pace at which, you learn. This is exemplified in the final year where you can opt for writing a dissertation or select a shorter extended essay alongside a unit called Creative Platforms that challenges you to extend your research and practice in a public context. Creative and intellectual independence, developing resilience and self-reliance, whilst also acknowledging your inter-dependence with others, are encouraged. The programme facilitates the development of graduate attributes including the ability to collaborate, utilise interpersonal skills and effectively communicate. These are supported by an enterprising learning culture that engages students as responsible citizens with an active awareness of ethics, safety, sustainability and social justice.