Fine Art

Program Overview

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MA Fine Art

Introduction to our Fine Art Masters

Transform and refine your fine art or printmaking practice and professional approach as an artist. Extend your practical, contextual and research skills in a multi-disciplinary, constructive, discursive and critical environment.

Student Experience

• Previous. Next.
• Student work
• Mick Paulusma, Embrace in Blue, 2023
• See more work by our MA Fine Art students
• ARU Spotlight
• Anna Dermitzaki
• MA Fine Art graduate Anna now works in the curatorial art team at the Eden Project, Cornwall.
• Read Anna Dermitzaki's Spotlight interview
• Graduate Showcase 2024
• Olivia Bevan
• MA Fine Art graduating students Olivia Bevan and Ivanna Wilson's July 2024 Cambridge Artspace exhibition, FRAGMENT, emphasised their common experiences of relocation and a fragmented sense of home.
• Find out more about FRAGMENT
• Graduate Showcase 2024
• Ivanna Wilson
• MA Fine Art graduating students Olivia Bevan and Ivanna Wilson's July 2024 Cambridge Artspace exhibition, FRAGMENT, emphasised their common experiences of relocation and a fragmented sense of home.
• Find out more about FRAGMENT
• ARU Spotlight
• Rosie Ruoxi
• MA Fine Art graduate Rosie is establishing herself as a practising artist in China. Her research focuses on ‘Nv Shu’ - a woman-only secret language and contemporary art.
• Meet Rosie
• Graduate success
• Niall MacCrann
• Graduate Niall MacCrann won the East London Printmakers prize at the International Original Print Exhibition 2023.
• See more of Niall's work
• Graduate Success
• Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair 2023
• Graduates Niall MacCrann and Sara Clark selected to show their work at this prestigious exhibition. (Image by Sara Clark)
• See more of Sara's work
• Student Success
• Francesca Gagni
• MA student and BA graduate Francesca was shortlisted for the Global Design Graduate Show 2023 in collaboration with Gucci.
• See more of Francesca's work
• Graduate Success
• Ayeshah Zolghadr and Sarah Strachan
• Selection of artworks displayed at Ayeshah Zolghadr (MA Printmaking 2022) and Sarah Strachan’s (MA Fine Art 2022) exhibition at Art at the ARB, 2023.

What will you do on our MA Fine Art?

By engaging with contemporary critical issues and with how artistic practices are understood in the 21st century and across different contexts, you will be encouraged to experiment, take risks, shift expectations and to strengthen the motivation, direction and ambition of your practice.

Full-time students are normally offered a dedicated studio space, while part-timers can access the studios as a shared work-base. All students can access all our facilities as outlined above.

The facilities within our specialist Printmaking Workshop in particular, along with those in the new Futures Lab, offer access to both traditional and emerging processes, including:

• Relief and intaglio printing
• Screen-printing
• Plate lithography
• Photo-based, digital media and 3D printing

These will enable you to engage with the histories of information and technological media as well as with contemporary approaches to reproducibility and the mediated image within the expanded field of print.

Similarly, our facilities in the 3D workshop and Annexe support traditional and new directions in contemporary artistic approaches in the uses of different materials, including wood, metals, clay, plaster, mould-making, laser cutting and related machinery, equipment and hand tools.

Technical demonstrations and refresher sessions are offered in both traditional and emerging processes and you are encouraged to experiment with these in your creative work, supported by staff who are experienced artists working across disciplines.

Teaching times

• Full-time: Tuesdays and Wednesdays
• Part-time Year 1: Wednesdays; Year 2: Tuesdays

You will be expected to attend for the full day (10am-5pm) in order to engage with your peers, work independently and use other resources such as the studios, library, and workshops, and attend extra-curricular events such as talks and inductions.

Teaching is primarily through one-to-one and group tutorials, seminars, workshops and studio critiques, in which you will learn about recent theories, contexts and practices.

You are also encouraged and expected to develop your work and research independently. You will be supported by teaching staff who are themselves experienced artists, working across different fine art disciplines.

Our Fine Art Research Unit (FARU) series of artist talks – and other specialist talks across ARU – invite you to hear invited artists, curators, PhD students and staff talk about their work and engage in debates about contemporary art practice.

Why should I join a Masters in Fine Art?

Our studio-based MA Fine Art course provides an opportunity for you to further explore, test and challenge your creative ideas in a supportive, professional environment.

You will benefit from links we have with external arts organisations in Cambridge, including Curwen Print Study, Cambridge Artworks, Wysing Art Centre and galleries and exhibition spaces, both in Cambridge and further afield.

We also have strong connections with the Printmaking pathway on the MA Fine Art programme at UAL, Camberwell College of Art, and since 2017, we have taken part in an annual MA Fine Art Inter-Institutional Symposium, which we hosted at ARU in June 2023. This included 47 students from ARU, AUB, BCU, NUA, Leeds, Nottingham Trent and Farnham.

We encourage our students to visit the multiple exhibitions in London (only one hour away) and promote student participation in open and prestigious competitions and prizes. For students specialising in Printmaking, Curwen Print Study offer the Art Scholars Curwen lithography Bursary & Residency award, which is open to students studying within the eastern region.

This postgraduate degree in Fine Art will further prepare you for life as a practising artist and develop important transferable skills in writing proposals, exhibition practice, curating, research and critical writing. These will be invaluable skills for alternative arts careers in curating, museum and gallery education or management, or teaching.

Course Leader

Dr Véronique Chance

Recent student and graduate success

• MA Fine Art Student Ric Pimentel won the Arts Scholars Curwen Lithography Bursary 2024, and will now attend a fully-funded ten-day residency at the Curwen Print Study Centre in Suffolk.
• Sara Clark and Niall MacCrann (2023 graduating students) were both selected for the 2023 Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair. Niall was also selected for the International Original Print Exhibition at the Bankside Gallery, London, winning the East London Printmakers’ award.
• Sarah Strachan (MA Fine Art 2022) and Ayeshah Zolghadr (MA Printmaking 2022) launched their ongoing collaborative project, The Anxiety Of Interdisciplinarity, with an exhibition of 37 artists for the Impact 12 International Printmaking Conference in Bristol in 2022. A second iteration featuring 40+ artists, The Anxiety Of Interdisciplinarity 2.0, was held at the Art at the ARB in Cambridge in September 2023.
• Ayeshah Zolghadr and Sarah Strachan won the first Curwen Print Scholars Bursary Award in 2022, which culminated in a residency and exhibition, Boundary Objects, at the new Curwen Print Study Centre premises in Great Thurlow in November 2022.
• Sarah Strachan was selected for the 2023 Aesthetica Art Prize, and has displayed her work in group exhibitions including: Fresh at the British Ceramic Biennial (2021), London Art Biennale (2021), Newplatform.art (2022) and Fresh Air Sculpture (2022). Sarah was also awarded the Art Resilience Sculpture Award, and won the ARU Sustainability Art Prize in 2021 and 2022.
• Ayeshah Zolghadr also won the Trinity Wharf Buoy 2020 Student Prize for her work Circling the Square I , and the Cambridge Artworks Award for her MA Show in 2022.
• Lon Chircop (MA Printmaking 2022) was a runner-up in the 2022 Cambridge Artworks Award, and one of the selected artists at the Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair 2022 with his lithography print Out of Focus. He has also won awards for his literary works – his debut novel Mitt Elf Isem Ieħor: HappyVeganGirlJules won the 2020 Literary Contest Of Novels For Youth in Malta and was a hit at the Malta Book Festival 2021. His second book Fil-Ħajja Li Jmiss u Drammi Oħra tat-Triq , a collection of short plays, was published by Merlin Publishers in 2022. He wrote both the music and lyrics for the song , which won the 46th edition of L-Għanja tal-Poplu.
• Joe Dean (MA Fine Art 2022) showed his work in the Woolwich Print Fair 2022, along with Lon Chircop and Sachiko Purser (2021). He also showed work in Ayeshah Zolghadr and Sarah Strachan’s The Anxiety of Interdisciplinarity exhibition at the Impact 12 International Multidisciplinary Printmaking Conference and in Cambridge. He was additionally selected for the 2020 Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize.
• Kate Green (MA Fine Art 2022) showed her MA final work at the the Chaya Art Awards in 2023, in London at the Barge House Gallery, Oxo Tower Wharf, winning the Public Choice Award. Alongside fellow graduate Ewa Pandera (2021), she took up a Caranvanserai residency at Cambridge ArtWorks during 2023.
• Ewa Pandera held her solo exhibition The Forest as a result of her MA Show award, at Cambridge Artspace in June 2022. She has also successfully shown work as part of the Window Wanderland in 2022 and 2023.
• Katy Drake (MA Printmaking 2021) is studying an Advanced Masters in Antwerp at the Sint Lucas Art School. She has collaborated with Kath Van Uytrecht (MA Printmaking 2020) on an artist residency project, Giving Voice , and artist book/print commission, Illuminating Knowledge , for the Society of Antiquaries, presented at the the Symposium Beyond Notability at the Society of Antiquaries for International Women’s Day 2024. They have also been working on a collaborative project with the Whipple Museum in Cambridge.
• Anna Dermitzaki (MA Fine Art 2021) is Exhibitions Assistant at the Eden Project in Cornwall, Collective Producer for Tate St Ives, and a Trustee for the AUP Charitable Trust. She has exhibited widely and collaborated on a residency with Katy Drake at Cambridge Artworks and Artspace in October 2023.
• Salvador Jiminéz Donaire Martinez (2019) received his PhD from the University of Seville in 2024, with the highest possible distinction in Spain (“Cum laude”) and an International Mention. He has since been hired by his faculty as a Substitute Professor. Salvador has received grants and awards from the Miró Mallorca Foundation, the historic Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid, the Martín Chirino Foundation, and the Antonio Gala Foundation. He also won the 25th European Plastic Arts Contest at the University of Seville in 2019.
• Svetlana Atlavina (2019) has received two Developing Your Creative Practice (DYCP) grants from the Arts Council England and another from a-n, the Artists Information Company to further her work in developing art workshops for NHS staff at Fulbourn Mental Health Hospital in Cambridge. She has also been developing new artworks using augmented reality and AI and is an Associate Lecturer in Fine Art at Buckinghamshire New University.
• Ian Phillips McLaren (MA Fine Art 2021) has been selected for many prestigious exhibitions He also teaches at London Met and is an an Associate Lecturer on the BA Photography and the MA Fine Art courses at ARU.
• Sandra Scott (2020) took up her ‘caravanserai’ residency at Cambridge Artworks in 2022 and has been largely responsible for the development of the Cambridge Black Creatives art group, who meet at Cambridge ArtSpace fortnightly on Thursdays.
• Deborah Suzanne Lander (2021 graduate) has been instrumental in the redevelopment and re-opening of the art gallery The Minories in Colchester, as an ongoing curatorial project through the establishment of the charity We are the Minories.
• Emily Godden (2019) has won several awards as a creative technologist and artist, most notably for their award winning social enterprise Virtually There Studio, creating exhibitions, experiences and educational opportunities to benefit both the environment and personal wellbeing. Emily regularly works with local organisations such as Cambridge Makespace and Collusion, and now leads the BA Digital Media Production course at ARU.
• Eleanor Breeze (MA Fine Art 2016) was in the prestigious Bloomberg New Contemporaries exhibition in 2017, and has exhibited in numerous high profile exhibitions since, including a solo show at The Broadway Gallery in Letchworth 2021. She is one of the founder members of Cambridge community-led company Together Culture, working towards creating a more equitable and ecological creative economy.

Course options

• 12 months full-time
• 24 months part-time
• September
• Cambridge

Key facts

• STUDY OPTIONS 12 months full-time
• START DATES September
• LOCATION Cambridge
• FEES
  • £9,800 UK students starting 2025/26 (full-time, per year)
  • £19,500 International students starting 2025/26 (full-time, per year)

Teaching and assessment

12 months full-time

• Year 1

Year 1

This Master's degree will enable you to develop your practice at an advanced level and to increase your theoretical and contextual knowledge and understanding of fine art.

You will be introduced to critical and practice-based research methods in the creative and visual arts and examine the implications of considering practice as research within art and design disciplines.

You will explore curatorial and exhibition practices on both a theoretical and practical level, with a strong emphasis on the consideration of site and the contemporary art scene. You will take part in presentations and critiques and gain experience in other areas of professional practice, including critical writing.

The Master's Dissertation is the major written element of our MA Fine Art. This is an opportunity for you to show your awareness of current critical debate in your chosen specialism and to develop a focussed enquiry through the investigation of a subject that defines your own field of practice.

The Master's Project is an advanced and ambitious self-directed art practice project with reflective commentary, that represents the culmination of your learning on the course.

Modules are subject to change and availability.

Assessment

On most of our core modules, you will demonstrate your progress through visual research outcomes supported by a written evaluative statement, except for Visual Research Methods and Practices, in which you will need to write a short essay, and the Master’s Dissertation, where you will submit a 6,000-word research paper.

Core modules

• Acts and Discourses
• Fine Art: Research and Practices
• Fine Art: Critical Practice
• Masters Dissertation: Fine Art
• Masters Project: Fine Art

Entry Requirements

• A good honours degree (or equivalent), normally in a related subject. Applicants with professional experience are also encouraged to apply.
• If English is not your first language you will be expected to demonstrate a certificated level of proficiency of at least IELTS 6.5 ( Academic level) or equivalent English Language qualification, as recognised by Anglia Ruskin University.

Additional information for EU and international students

• International students
  • See international and EU entry requirements
  • See information about application deadlines
• English language requirements
  • If English is not your first language, you'll need to make sure you meet our English language requirements for postgraduate courses.
  • Check the section 'Standard entry requirements' for IELTS requirements for this course.
• Improving your English language skills
  • If you don't meet our English language requirements, we offer a range of courses which could help you achieve the level required for entry.
  • We also provide our own English Language Proficiency Test (ELPT) in the UK and overseas. To find out if we are planning to hold an ELPT in your country, contact our country managers.

Portfolio

You need to submit a digital portfolio for this course. You are welcome to arrange a face to face portfolio review and tour.

For more information on how to prepare and submit your portfolio please visit our postgraduate portfolios page.

Fees and Paying for University

Tuition fees for UK students (2025/26)

£9,800 UK students starting 2025/26 (full-time, per year)

ARU graduates may be eligible for an Alumni Scholarship and get a 20% fee discount.

Fees are payable upfront, in full or in instalments, but there's no need to pay until you've accepted an offer to study with us. Find out more about paying your fees and about postgraduate loans and funding.

Tuition fees for international students (2025/26)

£19,500 International students starting 2025/26 (full-time, per year)

You can pay your fees upfront, in full or in two instalments. We will ask for a deposit of £4,000 or a sponsorship letter

Find out about paying your fees.

Additional course costs

• Estimated cost of materials £500-£750
• Optional trip abroad £160-£400
• Optional local field trip £16-23 per semester

Facilities and showcase

• Industry-standard equipment
  • Specialist printmaking workshop including etching, screen-printing, and lithography
  • Life drawing studio
  • Dedicated Mac and PC suites with the latest software including Adobe Creative suite
  • 3D workshops for physical media including wood, plastic, metal, and clay
  • Photography and media facilities including darkrooms; studios; film processing; digital printing suite; video editing; and professional equipment loans
  • Dedicated fashion workshops with industrial sewing, finishing, embroidery and seam sealing machines
  • Ruskin Gallery, a professional digital art gallery.
• Futures Lab and workshop equipment
  • Our new digital workshop includes a variety of computer aided manufacturing machines, helping you learn up to date manufacturing and design processes as well as supporting many traditional techniques. These technologies include:
    • 3D printers and scanners - FDM printers; material-specific extruders; SLA Formlabs printers; SLS Formlabs Fuse1; structured light 3D scanners
    • 2D printing and cutting machines - laser cutters; Roland BN20 vinyl printer & cutter; Gerber substrate cutter; Mimaki TX300P sublimation printer.

Lecturers

• Véronique Chance
  • Course Director, MA Fine Art
  • Véronique Chance's profile page
  • Visit Véronique's website
  • Follow Véronique on Twitter
  • Email:
• Duncan Ganley
  • Course Director, BA Photography
  • Duncan Ganley's profile page
  • Visit Duncan's website
• Elizabeth Johnson
  • Senior Lecturer
  • Elizabeth Johnson's profile page
• Deborah Lauder
  • Lecturer, Fine Art
  • Deborah Lauder's profile page
  • Visit Debby's website

Careers

What can you do with a Fine Art Master's degree?

Our MA Fine Art course will prepare you for work as a practicing artist, and you will also gain skills and knowledge that will equip you for related roles.

As well as continuing their artistic practices, through which they have taken up artist residencies, research and fellowship opportunities and public art projects in the UK and abroad, our MA Fine Art graduates also pursue careers in further and higher education, museum and gallery management and curation.

ARU's links with organisations including Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge Artworks, Commission Projects and Together Culture will give you opportunities to take part in artist studio visits, discussions, workshops, portfolio reviews, and other professional practice events and live projects.

While you’re studying here and after you graduate, you can access support through our dedicated Employability Service.

Graduation doesn’t have to be the end of your time with us. You could choose to continue your academic career with a research programme at ARU, such as our PhD Fine Art. Take advantage of our Alumni Scholarship and save £400 on your fees.

Program Outline

Outline:

• Modules:
• Acts and Discourses
• Fine Art: Methods and Practices
• Fine Art: Critical Practice
• Masters Dissertation: Fine Art
• Masters Project: Fine Art

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Assessment:

• Most core modules require visual research outcomes supported by a written evaluative statement.
• Visual Research Methods and Practices requires a short essay.
• Master's Dissertation requires a 6,000-word research paper.

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Teaching:

• One-to-one and group tutorials
• Seminars
• Workshops
• Studio critiques
• Part-time students: Wednesdays; Year 2: Tuesdays

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Careers:

• Practicing artist
• Curator
• Museum and gallery management
• Education: Further and higher education, teaching
• Research and fellowship opportunities
• Public art projects

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Tuition Fees and Payment Information:

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Tuition fees for UK students (2024/25)

£9,300 UK students starting 2024/25 (full-time, per year) ARU graduates may be eligible for an Alumni Scholarship and get a 20% fee discount. Fees are payable upfront, in full or in instalments, but there's no need to pay until you've accepted an offer to study with us. Find out more about paying your fees.

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Tuition fees for international students (2024/25)

£18,600 International students starting 2024/25 (full-time, per year) Tuition fees for international students (2024/25) £18,600 International students starting 2024/25 (full-time, per year) You can pay your fees upfront, in full or in two instalments. We will ask for a deposit of £4,000 or a sponsorship letter Find out about paying your fees. For postgraduate courses, international ARU graduates are automatically considered for an International Alumni Scholarship, worth £3,000 off first-year fees.

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Additional course costs

Additional costs Estimated cost of materials £500-£750 Optional trip abroad £160-£400 Optional local field trip £16-23 per semester