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Fine Art BA(Hons)

2024-25 (also available for 2025-26)

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Places available in clearing. Find out more.
Places available in clearing. Find out more.

Start date

16 September 2024

Duration

3 years full-time
4 years inc. placement year

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About the course

Reasons to study

1. You could undertake a career-enhancing work placement, providing real-world experience of being employed within a range of creative roles relevant to your arts-based practice. Or you could apply for the Enterprise Placement Year to kickstart your own small business.

2. To enhance your professional profile, you’ll have the chance to work on live projects and briefs, set by our industry contacts, and exhibit your work in and around the town of Huddersfield.

3. Your hard work and achievements will be celebrated at our annual summer degree show – a highlight of the academic year. 

With a focus on fine art, this course aims to help you to develop into an independent, creative practitioner with the ability to create exciting artworks through explorations and experimentations, in both ideas and materials.

As a broad introduction to concepts, contexts, techniques, and technologies, you’ll be encouraged to draw upon existing knowledge. By doing so, you’ll establish the frameworks within which to operate as a creative practitioner, through the exploration of painting, drawing, installation, film, photography, and digital art.

On this flexible Fine Art degree course, you’ll be taught by tutors who are practising artists. You’ll be able to develop the techniques and skill required to pursue a post-university interest or career in a host of roles.

Why study Fine Art BA(Hons

By studying Fine Art at the University of Huddersfield you’ll get to work from our state-of-the-art Barbara Hepworth Building, which features collaborative studio spaces, advanced photography and CAD studios and a high-quality digital print centre. Art at Huddersfield is top in Yorkshire* for Learning Resources, scoring 88%, based on experimental statistics from the National Student Survey 2023.

During this Fine Art degree, you’ll be given the support you need to translate your ideas, however complex or ambitious, onto paper, film, or whichever media you’re using.

You’ll discover the art of evaluation; curation and the presentation of your artworks through your chance to work on live projects, competition briefs and public exhibitions.

With several arts and cultural institutions nearby, you’ll be given the opportunity to attend field trips to events and galleries in Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool. These include the Tate, Henry Moore institute, The Hepworth, and Yorkshire Sculpture Park. As college members of the Association of Illustrators and Design and Art Direction (D&AD), there will be chances to hear talks from guest speakers and professionals from the world of art and illustration.

Our successful graduates have even won awards and prizes such as the Northern Graduates Prize, The Alternative Turner Prize and New Sensations.

When you enrol onto a Fine Art course like ours, you are opening the door to a wide range of possibilities.

The course is part of a suite of three courses, which includes Fine Art and Illustration BA(Hons) and Illustration BA(Hons). While you only apply for one course on the suite, you can choose to pursue any of the three throughout your degree, to tailor your studies to your interests within the subject.

*Institutions in Yorkshire with a turnover of over £100 million.

Course detail

Core modules:

Studio Practice 1

The module will concentrate on promoting an in-depth and disciplined approach to the breadth of contemporary practices in fine art and/or illustration. The focus is on exploration and experiment, in both ideas and materials, as a broad introduction to approaches to practice. You will be encouraged to draw upon existing knowledge in order to begin to establish the frameworks within which to operate as a creative practitioner. You will engage in processes such as drawing, painting, printmaking, lens-based media, and 3D work, and will be encouraged to examine these processes in relation to your personal conceptual and critical development. Strategies for developing visual awareness and conceptual thinking, and of selecting appropriate methods of production are central to this module. You will be introduced to current debates and issues within visual practice related to fine art and illustration, and to the ways in which artefacts are ‘read’ or interpreted, both explicitly and implicitly. A coherent and structured creative methodology will be encouraged in order to enhance visual perception and communication.

Studio Practice 2

Building on your experience during the first term, this module continues to promote research and experiment in the production of practical work. You will draw upon knowledge and progress gained in Studio Practice 1 in order to extend the range of your visual practice. Debates and issues within contemporary practice will continue to inform your thinking and development, and you will begin to recognise a range of contexts in which you might work. The module will enable you to further develop your creative and intellectual potential through practice, supported by contextual study, theory and criticism. You will continue to develop a structured and self-critical methodology in relation to your studio work. The module continues to promote a wide-range of intellectual and technical processes, with idea exploration, interpretation of themes through appropriate visual languages, and experimental media usage.

Introduction to Critical Languages

This module introduces you to vital debates on the production and reception of contemporary visual culture. Interdisciplinary in nature and approach, you will explore the subject with reference to a wide variety of images and artefacts, applying your learning to your subject specialism. The module introduces you to the importance of independent research, critical thinking and informed opinion. You will learn to recognise and appraise key conventions and contexts and apply that knowledge to your creative practice through discussion and in written formats that recognise the breadth of styles deployed by today’s creative practitioners.

Entry requirements

To find out if you’re eligible to start this course in September 2024 and get more information on how to apply, please see our Clearing pages or call our Clearing Helpline on 0333 987 900001484 472777.

If you’re interested in studying this course in September 2025, please view the 2025-26 course information.

Placements

The course offers an optional one-year (36 weeks minimum) work placement after the second year, in the UK or abroad. This will give you the opportunity to gain valuable hands-on experience, insight into your chosen career and open up your graduate employment prospects. Our Placement Unit and academic staff have excellent industry links and can support you in applying for and finding your placement(s), as well as during your placement year.

Students within the area of Fine Art and Illustration have previously taken up placement opportunities with companies including: House of Illustration - London; Venture Arts - Manchester; Mini Me Card Company - Skipton and Plum Pudding Publishing - Surrey.

You can find out more information on placements here.

During my time at Surface Gallery I learnt invaluable skills which allowed me to curate and co-ordinate a solo exhibition for an award winning photographer!

Megan Bonser

Megan Bonser, Contemporary Art BA(Hons), placement with Surface Gallery, Nottingham

Student Work

A selection of work from Contemporary Art students.

Your career

Following the course you may opt for further study, or could consider a career as an artist, curator, or a role in community arts, the media or design for example. Our graduates have won awards and prizes such as the Northern Graduates Prize, The Alternative Turner Prize, and New Sensations (a joint venture between the Saatchi Gallery and Channel 4). They've also gone on to work for companies such as East Street Arts, Leicestershire Craft Centre, Pyramid of Arts, Studio 116 Design, The Whitechapel Gallery in London, Tate Liverpool, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and The Hepworth Wakefield.**

*Percentage of our undergraduate students from this course go on to work and/or further study within fifteen months of graduating (HESA Graduate Outcomes 2019/20, UK domiciled, other activities excluded).

Source: **GEMS

70% Graduates employed*

Student support

At the University of Huddersfield, you'll find support networks and services to help you get ahead in your studies and social life. Whether you study at undergraduate or postgraduate level, you'll soon discover that you're never far away from our dedicated staff and resources to help you to navigate through your personal student journey. Find out more about all our support services.

Important information

Although we always try and ensure we deliver our courses as described, sometimes we may have to make changes for the following reasons

When you enrol as a student of the University, your study and time with us will be governed by our terms and conditions, Handbook of Regulations and associated policies. It is important that you familiarise yourself with these as you will be asked to agree to them when you join us as a student. You will find a guide to the key terms here, along with the Student Protection Plan.

Although we always try and ensure we deliver our courses as described, sometimes we may have to make changes for the following reasons

Changes to a course you have applied for but are not yet enrolled on

If we propose to make a major change to a course that you are holding an offer for, then we will tell you as soon as possible so that you can decide whether to withdraw your application prior to enrolment. We may occasionally have to withdraw a course you have applied for or combine your programme with another programme if we consider this reasonably necessary to ensure a good student experience, for example if there are not enough applicants. Where this is the case we will notify you as soon as reasonably possible and we will discuss with you other suitable courses we can transfer your application to. If you do not wish to transfer to another course with us, you may cancel your application and we will refund you any deposits or fees you have paid to us.

Changes to your course after you enrol as a student

Changes to option modules:

Where your course allows you to choose modules from a range of options, we will review these each year and change them to reflect the expertise of our staff, current trends in research and as a result of student feedback or demand for certain modules. We will always ensure that you have an equivalent range of options to that advertised for the course. We will let you know in good time the options available for you to choose for the following year.

Major changes:

We will only make major changes to non-optional modules on a course if it is necessary for us to do so and provided such changes are reasonable. A major change is a change that substantially changes the outcomes, or a significant part of your course, such as the nature of the award or a substantial change to module content, teaching days (part time provision), type of delivery or assessment of the core curriculum. For example, it may be necessary to make a major change to reflect changes in the law or the requirements of the University’s regulators or a commissioning or accrediting body. We may also make changes to improve the course in response to student, examiners’ or other course evaluators’ feedback or to ensure you are being taught current best practice. Major changes may also be necessary because of circumstances outside our reasonable control, such as a key member of staff leaving the University or being unable to teach, where they have a particular specialism that can’t be adequately covered by other members of staff; or due to damage or interruption to buildings, facilities or equipment, or pandemics.

Major changes would usually be made with effect from the next academic year, but may happen sooner in an emergency. We will notify you as soon as possible should we need to make a major change and will carry out suitable consultation. If you reasonably believe that the proposed change will cause you detriment or hardship we will, if appropriate, work with you to try to reduce the adverse effect on you or find an appropriate solution. Where an appropriate solution cannot be found and you contact us in writing before the change takes effect you can cancel your registration and withdraw from the University without liability to the University for future tuition fees. We will provide reasonable support to assist you with transferring to another university if you wish to do so.

In exceptional circumstances, we may, for reasons outside of our control, be forced to discontinue or suspend your course. Where this is the case, a formal exit strategy will be followed in accordance with the student protection plan.

The Office for Students (OfS) is the principal regulator for the University.

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