Fine Art at UCA

Diversity of people and art practice is celebrated and vital in our BA (Hons) Fine Art degree at UCA Canterbury, where you will be supported to become the artist you want to be.  

With a high level of individual support and extensive facilities, you will enjoy a bespoke learning experience.

You’ll develop independence in both your thinking and working, come to understand what it means to be creative in relation to your own interests, and learn how to communicate your practice. 

Fine Art at Canterbury is well established. There is easy access to both London and Europe, and our international team of staff with world-leading practices and reputations will support, nurture, and encourage you as you create work that matters.

 

Course entry options

Select from the following options to find out more about the different study options available for this course:

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Institution code
C93
UCAS code
W100
Campus
UCA Canterbury
Start date(s)
September 2025
Duration
3 years full-time
Entry requirements

112 UCAS points
International equivalent qualifications

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Institution code
C93
UCAS code
W10F
Campus
UCA Canterbury
Start date(s)
September 2025
Duration
4 years full-time
Entry requirements

UK: 32 UCAS points
International / EU: 12 years of schooling (with good grades)

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Institution code
C93
UCAS code
W10H
Campus
Start date(s)
Duration
Entry requirements
Close
Institution code
C93
UCAS code
W103
Campus
UCA Canterbury
Start date(s)
September 2025
Duration
4 years full-time
Entry requirements

112 UCAS points
International equivalent qualifications

Close
Institution code
C93
UCAS code
W10G
Campus
UCA Canterbury
Start date(s)
September 2025
Duration
5 years full-time
Entry requirements

UK: 32 UCAS points
International / EU: 12 years of schooling (with good grades)

Close
Institution code
C93
Campus
Start date(s)
Duration
Entry requirements

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Discover the stories of our Art students
What you'll study

What you'll
study

The content of the course may be subject to change. Curriculum content is provided as a guide.

UCA’s Integrated Foundation Year is designed to give you the skills you’ll need to start your degree in the best possible way – with confidence, solid knowledge of creative practice, study skills and more.

You’ll explore a range of creative techniques and develop your portfolio, with your chosen subject in mind. We’ll work with you throughout the year to ensure you’re on the right track and give you the tools to achieve your highest potential on your degree.

Find out more about the Integrated Foundation Year

Launch
Launch Week is your introduction to the campus and the course, as well as to the contexts and forms relevant for the Fine Art programme. You may be asked to make an impactful and meaningful collaborative project – following theme(s) developed alongside your tutors.

Fine Art – Studio 1
This is an introductory unit into contemporary art practice that will enable you to explore, make, and exhibit your work. Contemporary art is art that is being made by artists today, it is also the many questions and conversations that their work provokes. You will be asked to be experimental and take risks with your work, as you begin to find out what else is possible with the work you produce when you ask the question “What is Fine Art?”

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
This unit introduces subject specific concepts of equality, diversity and inclusion. The unit provides an opportunity to explore the ethics of creative practice in relation to a range of global perspectives.

Display: Exhibitions 1
The work produced from the previous unit will have helped you to explore and experiment in many ways and you will have produced a wide range of work. You may be asked to make a new piece of work developing from the previous unit for the purposes of display. You will need to document your work. The unit allows for work to be individual or collaborative, speculative (e.g. a model) or live. 

Opportunity
The primary objective of these activities is to encourage the habit of exploring the varied forms for Fine Art alongside your peers and to communicate your ideas to the wider community of the campus.

Practice Lab: Studio 2
You are asked to make work exploring different practices as supported by technical workshops and engage with lectures and seminars. You will get many examples of artists working across many disciplines and current conversations on Fine Art in your unit handbook, through lectures and discussions. Explore the work of other artists across the globe and the disciplines and contexts that they work in and see how your work and ideas fit into these practices. 

Connections: Theory 2
This unit provides a platform for you to participate with aspects of professional practice related to Fine Art practice through research and direct engagement. This is to help you recognise yourself as part of the professional world. You’ll deliver a visual bibliography on selected arts organisations, galleries, museums, biennials, triennials, or festivals. This could include gathering direct and live information on how the chosen organisation was formed or how the individuals within the group got to their position. 

Curator Lab: Exhibitions 2
Here you have an opportunity to exhibit and communicate creative outputs, building on the experimental nature of outcomes and ideas developed in the Practice Lab. The unit offers you the opportunity to work with others in the display and curation of their work. Collaboration is encouraged to explore the interdisciplinary nature of curation and installation. 

ATOM Activities
ATOM activities are small pieces of individual learning that facilitate interdisciplinary exposure across UCA, and offer a flexible, impactful learning experience. They expand your creative horizon by accessing learning topics that would not otherwise be scheduled on your course specific timetable.

PLE Digital Outcomes
The PLE Digital Outcome is a purposefully edited, self-directed record of your constructive, engagement with and presence on, digital media platforms across the year.

Launch
This is your introduction to the second year of the Fine Art programme. Embedding interdisciplinary learning into the curriculum is one of the university’s primary objectives. So, as well as looking ahead to your second year you will be asked to contribute to an collaborative project

Fine Art Practice: Studio 1
This unit further develops your individual practice within a more focused studio and research environment. You are encouraged to consider relationships between different aspects of contemporary art practice and theory. This unit develops your practice through experimentation, experience, and process to expand the shape of your work and ideas.

Conscious Practitioner: Theory 1
This unit engages with subject specific concepts of equality, diversity and inclusion. The unit provides an opportunity to explore the ethics of creative practice in relation to a range of global perspectives.

Interdisciplinary Elective
This unit equips you to work confidently and professionally, as you collaborate, experiment and realise creative responses to briefs. You will build on knowledge and skills from your core course studies as you are introduced to interdisciplinarity opportunities within the context of the wider campus. Working across a period of study, you are asked to meaningfully engage with a range of interdisciplinary activities to build on your experiences within your chosen sphere of focus. 

Opportunity
Opportunity week introduces you to individual or collective project opportunities, and processes for developing and realising work in public contexts. It prepares you for the Contemporary Practice Placement and is supported by the Connections 2 unit.

Contemporary Practice: Studio 2
You’ll further develop your studio practice informed by the experimentation and engagement with workshops during previous terms. In addition to your developing work, you’ll prepare your studio practice for exhibition in an off-site display in the Professional Practice unit, which will give you further experience of public engagement. You may be involved in initial liaising and negotiating with industry stakeholders as you process your practice for the context of an off-site display.

Professional Practice: Theory 2
You’ll engage with aspects of professional practice related to your Fine Art practice. This is achieved through your research and your direct engagement. Learning will be delivered through workshops covering topics such as how to write a CV or a subject-specific cover letter or registering as a freelance professional. 

Placement
Through social and ethically engaged practice, you’ll be introduced to real-world experiences through strategies to take the learning experience out into the community. Placement offers the opportunity to produce projects that seek to foster diverse concerns such as entrepreneurial career paths, student futures, and exploration of the myriad path which fine art students might take after graduation. 

ATOM Activities
ATOM activities are small pieces of individual learning that facilitate interdisciplinary exposure across UCA, and offer a flexible, impactful learning experience. They expand your creative horizon by accessing learning topics that would not otherwise be scheduled on your course specific timetable.

PLE Digital Outcomes
The PLE Digital Outcome is a purposefully edited, self-directed record of your constructive, engagement with and presence on, digital media platforms across the year.

If you opt to complete a professional practice year, this will take place in year three. You will undertake a placement within the creative industries to further develop your skills and CV.

While on your Professional Practice Year, you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee for that year. This fee will be determined using government funding regulations. Based on current regulations, we expect this to be a maximum of 20% of the tuition fee rate that you are charged for your second year of study. You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during this year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this as you approach your Professional Practice Year.

Please note: If you are an international applicant, you will need to enrol onto the course ‘with Professional Practice Year’. It will not be possible to transfer onto the Professional Practice Year after enrolment

Launch 
This is your introduction to the final year of the Fine Art programme. Embedding interdisciplinary learning into the curriculum is one of the university’s primary objectives. 

Studio Development
This unit sees the start of your preparations for the Degree Show and anticipates potential approaches in studio practice. You will produce a body of work, an artist statement and developmental work. 

Contextual Development
Building on earlier theoretical study, you will engage with research and practical interests. You’ll develop a methodological approach, appropriate to your chosen subject area and working with academic conventions to produce a written work alongside an optional artefact. 

Opportunity
The primary objective of these activities is to encourage the habit of exploring the varied forms for Fine Art alongside your peers and to communicate your ideas to the wider community of the campus. Collaborative working and Interdisciplinary learning is a key means of achieving this.

Degree Show: Final Major Project
This final unit requires demonstration of an independent and critically informed practice. Refining an approach to presenting work under exhibition conditions is a key aspect of this unit. The research skills and criticality developed through past units are designed to support your practice in this final stage of the course. 

This unit is supported by a series of seminars and workshops on the professional practice of Fine Art, including postgraduate options. Your artist statement will form part of your professional portfolio outlining the ideas and influences that inform your work, refined from previous attempts to reflect your final public studio submission.

This course is designed to offer you (if eligible) the opportunity to study part of your degree aboard at a UCA partner university, while still earning credits towards your UCA degree.

For more information please visit the Study Abroad section

Across the entire duration of this course you will be required to maintain and evolve a Progression Portfolio. Through this you will learn how to curate and build a document of all of your research and developmental/experimental work across each unit of the course. This portfolio will allow you to reflect, review, update and present all of your unit outcomes in one place to demonstrate your knowledge/understanding, technical and professional skills as a Visual Communication practitioner. This is your first step in placing your own practice in an industry context. This will also form an important component for each assessed element of the course.

Course specifications

Please note, syllabus content indicated is provided as a guide. The content of the course may be subject to change in line with our Student Terms and Conditions for example, as required by external professional bodies or to improve the quality of the course.

Explore our gradshowa

Each year, we’re privileged to be able to share our graduates’ incredible work with the world. And now’s your chance to take a look.

Visit the online showcase
Fees & funding

Fees & financial support

Tuition fees - 2025/26

  • Integrated Foundation Year: £9,535
  • BA course: £9,535

If you opt to study the Professional Practice Year, for 2025 you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee of £1,900. You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during your Professional Practice year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this.

Tuition fees - 2025/26

  • Integrated Foundation Year: £9,535 (see fee discount information)
  • BA course: £9,535 (see fee discount information)

If you opt to study the Professional Practice Year, for 2025 you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee of £1,900. You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during your Professional Practice year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this.

Tuition fees - 2025/26

  • Integrated Foundation Year: £16,950
  • BA course: £17,500

If you opt to study the Professional Practice Year, for 2025 you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee of £3,390. You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during your Professional Practice year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this.

Please note: The fees listed on this webpage are correct for the stated academic year only, for details of previous years please see the full fee schedules.

UCA scholarships and fee discounts

At UCA we have a number of scholarships and fee discounts available to assist you with the cost of your studies.

Financial support

There are lots of ways you can access additional financial support to help you fund your studies - both from UCA and from external sources. Discover what support you might qualify for please see our financial support information.

Additional course costs

In addition to the tuition fees there may be other costs for your course. The things that you are likely to need to budget for to get the most out of a creative arts education will include books, printing costs, occasional or optional study trips and/or project materials.

These costs will vary according to the nature of your project work and the individual choices that you make. Please see the Additional Course Costs section of the Course Information Document for more details of the costs you may incur.

Facilities

There are large purpose-built studios for each year of the course, used for group tutorials and personal working and a 3D workshop with machines for working in wood, metals, plastics and ceramics. There are also workshops for plaster and rubber casting, glass casting, slumping, fusing and enamelling (kiln), ceramic bisque and gloss firing, low melt metal casting, and carving (wood, stone and polystyrene). Finally, there are printmaking studios for relief and block printing, intaglio and screen-printing.

View 360 virtual tour

Fine Art studios, UCA Canterbury

Sculpture studios, UCA Canterbury

Print studios, UCA Canterbury

Photography studios, UCA Canterbury

Career opportunities

As a long-established course, we have a developed Kent wide network which gives our students access to some of the most respected names in the creative industries, including:

  • Turner Contemporary Margate
  • Folkestone Triennial
  • Dover Arts Development
  • Stour Valley Creative Partnership
  • Crate
  • Whitstable Biennale
  • Canterbury Cathedral

While many of our alumni have developed careers as established artists, others have chosen to apply their talents to other fields, becoming:

  • Artist practitioners
  • Filmmakers
  • Project managers
  • Animators
  • Curators
  • Writers photographers
  • Arts administrators
  • Publishers
  • Educators
  • Technical instructors
  • Designers
  • Producers
  • Picture/archive researchers

You may also like to consider further study at postgraduate level.

Ronan Alice Porter

"My art practice has really developed; I’ve learnt so much about modern art history and practicing artists that I couldn’t have attained elsewhere. I’m a lot more confident in myself as an artist."

Ronan Alice Porter

Entry & portfolio requirements

We’ll need to see your portfolio for review. You'll be invited to attend an Applicant Day so you can have your portfolio review in person, meet the course team and learn more about your course. Further information will be provided once you have applied. View more portfolio advice

International students will be asked to submit an online portfolio. No portfolio is required for the international foundation year.

Select your country to find the equivalent requirements

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