Fine Art: Painting

Painting is one of the oldest forms of human expression, and also one of the most persistently alive. Far from being a historical relic, painting continues to evolve as artists find new ways to use material, surface, and image to investigate ideas, emotions, and the texture of contemporary life. Its enduring power lies precisely in the directness of its means: pigment, surface, gesture, and light, and in the inexhaustible variety of what can be done with them.

Studying painting as a fine art practice is not about learning a fixed set of techniques; it is about developing your own visual intelligence and finding the approaches that allow you to make work that is genuinely yours.

At the University of the Arts London, this three-year full-time degree places you in one of the world's most stimulating environments for contemporary art practice. You will experiment with contemporary, traditional, and expanded approaches to painting, drawing on your own curiosity and developing an increasingly sophisticated capacity to move between different ways of working. Studio practice is at the centre of the degree, and you will learn to evaluate and articulate your work in the context of contemporary art and art history.

A placement or work experience year is built into the programme, giving you direct engagement with the professional art world beyond the studio.

You will develop not only technical range and visual confidence but also the critical and conceptual skills to understand what you are doing and why. Learning to present and discuss your work, to receive and give critique, and to situate your practice in relation to a broader field are central to becoming an artist who can sustain a practice beyond graduation.

Graduates from fine art painting degrees pursue careers as practising artists, often alongside work in education, community arts, arts administration, curating, or design. The creative, analytical, and communication skills the degree develops are also valued in a wide range of contexts beyond the art world itself.