Fine Art BA (Hons)
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UCAS Code: W101|Duration: 3|Full Time|Creative Campus
UCAS Campus Code: L46
Work placement opportunities|International students can apply|Study Abroad opportunities
About the course
At its core, Fine Art is about communication, innovation, challenge and application. It is about exploring your potential through visual possibilities and theoretical questions, with an awareness of the increasingly complex and media-saturated global arena. Our Fine Art degree is for those who have the desire to work hard and the ability to explore ideas through a wide range of media. The course is driven by its core aim; to encourage and enable you to engage with a wide range of discourse and practices across a broad Fine Art spectrum that reflects art historical and contemporary contexts.
With more museums and galleries than any other UK city outside of London and the country’s largest contemporary art biennial, Liverpool provides a dynamic setting for the study of Fine Art. Through partnerships with renowned cultural organisations such as TATE and Bluecoat Galleries, you can experience an enriched curriculum with visiting lecturers and international artists contributing to your learning experience.
The Fine Art degree at Liverpool Hope is delivered through three main components: Studio Practice, Art History, and Professional Practice. This combination of studies will equip you with the essential skills to establish yourself as a professional artist or work in the wider creative industries. Study with us and you will have access to excellent dedicated studio spaces and workshops, with a balance of traditional and new media.
The programme is taught by professional artists who are actively engaged in research and possess a long history of exhibiting and curating. Moreover, the teaching staff actively participate in contemporary practice, research, and discourse. This wealth of staff experience will enable you to explore a broad range of approaches and methodologies within Fine Art. The staff expertise ensures a curriculum influenced by current ideas and relevant contemporary research practices within the sector.
The Art History element of the curriculum provides a systematic underpinning of Art practices and theories with a strong emphasis on critical thinking.
At Liverpool Hope University's Creative Campus, students are immersed in the city’s vibrant cultural activity, this includes the University’s Cornerstone Gallery. The Gallery plays a crucial role in the educational experience, offering a variety of exhibitions from professional visiting artists as well as showcasing student work. These exhibitions are integrated into the curriculum, enhancing, underpinning, and supporting students’ learning across different disciplines.
Fine Art at Liverpool Hope is consistently high-ranking in the UK for Overall Student Satisfaction and has a proven track record of producing well-informed graduates who gain employment across the arts sector. Many of our graduates transition seamlessly into postgraduate studies within the UK university framework.
Course structure
Teaching on this degree is delivered in individually allocated studio spaces where you will have group projects, one-to-one tutorials and independent studio time. The Art History component is delivered through lectures, where all students are taught together. Fine Art teaching consists of seminars containing smaller groups of around 15-20 students, and tutorials which typically contain no more than 10 students. You also spend time in the studio for practical sessions, have specialist material-based demonstrations, and have the opportunity for a one-to-one meeting with your tutor each week. This structured approach ensures a well-rounded educational experience, balancing theoretical knowledge with practical skills and fostering an environment of research-informed practice.
In your first year, there are approximately 13 teaching hours each week, which reduces to approximately 10 hours in your second and third years. On top of teaching hours, you are expected to spend a several hours each week working in the studio and studying independently. Additionally, you will be studying in groups to prepare for any group assessments you may have. Independent museum and gallery visits are invaluable and form the basis of primary research in the areas of art history, cultural studies, or curatorial practice. You are expected to visit galleries and to engage directly with original artworks both in Liverpool and on a national level.
Assessment and feedback
The assessment for this programme is multifaceted and involves the consideration of your practical and visual outputs, portfolio exams, personal research and documentation (such as contextual and personal journals and sketchbooks), essays, and written exams.
Assessment criteria are designed to support and enable development rather than act as a purely grading classification procedure. Coursework is indicatively assessed after semester one with concise feedback provided. This dialogue offers a steer on strengths, weaknesses, and pointers for further research, alongside, methodologies to be considered before the commencement of semester two and in preparation for the summative assessments. All feedback provided is delivered promptly and discussed at length with tutors during one-to-one sessions.
Curriculum overview
In your first and second years, as well as the topics listed below, you will also have study/writing/research skills sessions, as well as field trips to North West venues and lectures from guest speakers. In your second year, you will start to prepare for your final year dissertation (written special study). You will also have the opportunity to take part in an international study field trip visit and to participate in the Liverpool Hope University Angelfield Festival, which is an annual event staged at the Creative Campus.
Year One
Contemporary Approaches to Fine Art
You will be introduced to the subject through a range of exciting and
challenging studio projects including painting, sculpture, sonic art, drawing, collaborative installation and an optional site-specific installation project in the public realm. There are also introductory sessions on colour theory, oil and acrylic painting techniques, printmaking, drawing specialisms, surface preparation, and digital media.
Applications and Uses of Drawing
From the beginning of the first year there is an emphasis on the rudimental elements of drawing which tracks through to a broader conversation regarding the holistic practice and position of contemporary drawing. The aim is for you to gain an understanding of the applications and uses of drawing as an investigative tool. The programme includes optional life-drawing sessions led by a specialist tutor. The Drawing and Materiality element looks at drawing through the lens of differing materials such as ceramics, sculptural processes, painting, wood, and digital media.
The Drawing and Materiality programme is underpinned by a series of weekly lectures that deconstruct drawing within the frames of art history and contemporary practice. These lectures provide you with an in-depth understanding of drawing as a fundamental aspect of practice, exploring its evolution and relevance within contemporary art. This combination of hands-on practice and theoretical knowledge across the curriculum, enables you to excel as a researcher and innovative practitioner.
Visual Awareness/Critical Skills in Relation to Studio Practice
Through group critiques, seminars and the systematic deconstruction of signs and representational systems, you will develop your critical thinking and visual awareness. Engaging in one-to-one tutorials, and gaining exposure to professional exhibiting artists, along with an involved study of their work, will enhance and inform your practice at all levels. The reflective documentation of your work and the work of others is essential and will be documented in your Contextual and Personal Journals.
Methods and Practice
You will be presented with opportunities to develop technical skills through specialist induction sessions in wood, metal, plaster, print, colour theory, stretcher-making, 3D modelling, oil and acrylic painting, as well as digitally based inductions.
Themes and Issues in Art History
This chronological lecture series introduces you to key events, styles and movements in the history of art and design, starting in Antiquity and ending with modern/postmodern art in the late 20th century. The lecture and seminar series is organised in five chronological period blocks. Within each block, thematic topics will draw together cross-disciplinary content relating to diverse aspects of art historical practices. Themes of the study include concepts of the self and the body; the social and political role of art history; inhabiting the material world; producing and consuming art. Each block will also contain a key reading, which will introduce students to a range of critical thinkers. Each block lasts five weeks and includes one full day for a site visit.
Art and Design History: Close Up Lecture
The ‘Close Up’ programme extends the lecture series through provision of in-depth investigation of particular themes, makers and objects. Lectures may include:
- Close up investigation of a single artwork or artefact incorporating both formal and contextual analysis
- Considering a range of diverse historical and cultural contexts for individual artworks, artefacts and practices
- Challenging the ’grand narratives’ of art history by drawing attention to marginalised areas of practice
- Workshop, studio or museum/gallery visits in order to handle and discuss materials/artefacts/artworks at first hand.
Tutorial
The weekly tutorial will provide a focus on developing study skills and methodologies, and encouraging student-led discussion and activities. Themes introduced during the three lecture/seminar elements will be picked up during the tutorials.
Year Two
Establishing Autonomous Studio Practice
In discussion with studio lecturers, you will write an independent research proposal for your practical work. Although your research interest may change, you will discuss general research methods with your tutor and begin to explore an individual and autonomous direction for your studio practice. Tutorials continue to be available on a one-to-one basis and regular group critiques will encourage critical evaluation and discourse involving all artwork produced and the related research.
Professional Practice
The practical component is a year-long lecture programme that will introduce you to more advanced aspects of exhibition planning, project management and fundraising. The assessment of this element, a Learning Portfolio, will focus on the preparatory stage of the exhibition planning.
Special Topics in Art History
This topic gives you the opportunity to get involved with academic research based on your tutors’ expertise. Special topics will be offered in the form of six-week blocks, including a site visit. Topics will include relevant approaches from the field of Fine Art. These may change from year to year, but examples include ‘Narratives in Art and Design’, ‘Feminism and Gender’, ‘Propaganda and Persuasion in Visual and Material Culture’, ‘National Identity and Post-Colonialism’. The seminar will pick up the content of the lecture through the texts of key thinkers. At the end of each block, you will be asked to produce a practical writing task which will then be assessed by others in your class.
Tutorial
Study skills and methodologies that were introduced during the first year will be explored in more depth during your second year. The other key function of the tutorial is assignment and exam preparation. Particular attention will be given to the Special Study Proposal, which is a viability study of the research project in Year 3.
Year Three
Advanced Studio Practice
Studio practice in year three is led by your individual research direction. You will receive regular support and guidance via one-to-one formal and informal tutorials from studio lecturers who are professional artists and skilled educationalists. Group critiques with your peers and tutors, indicative and self-assessments support you in developing a personal visual language in full knowledge of the Fine Art field of cultural production.
Research Project/Studio
You will keep contextual and personal journals to position your studio practice from an informed and knowledgeable perspective and reflect upon your progress in the studio. Documentation of your engagement with national and international contemporary art will form the basis of your contextual journal whilst the personal journal will record methods and progress in the studio. The research in the personal journal will also document and critically reflect upon, any art practice, either historical or contemporary, which relates to or has influenced your studio work.
Advanced Professional Practice
Delivered by professional working artists and researchers, this topic provides you with employability skills for the creative industries, culminating in an exhibition or event in a public venue in Liverpool that is organised and delivered collectively by the third-year student group. This element of the course expands upon and continues the development of practical skills required to produce and exhibit artworks professionally in the gallery, site-specific or installation context. Professional practice also gives an insight into career opportunities that exist within the creative industry sector through visiting artists and industry professional talks and seminars.
Contemporary Curating: Display, Interpretation, Audiences
This lecture series will explore the development of curating as an integral aspect of creative practice, both as an art form in itself and as a fundamental element of professional creative life. Curating today goes far beyond the confines of the museum or art gallery; the term is increasingly used to describe the practice of navigating, selecting, presenting and making meaning from the plethora of images, objects and experiences available in a digital age. This lecture/seminar series will combine theoretical/historical discussion with presentations by professional guest speakers from across the region during term 1, followed by a diverse programme of visits in term 2 providing opportunities to apply theoretical ideas to real world examples. It will provide you not only with grounded knowledge of developments in curatorial theory and practice but also a network of contacts within the creative industries in and around Liverpool.
Aesthetics
The term-long seminar ‘Aesthetics’ will analyse key aesthetic concepts relating to the making and understanding of art and design. The history of aesthetics is bound up with philosophical ideas about the nature and function of art and design, and how the past has influenced current theories of art. Given the extensive nature of this subject, the topic aims to act as a catalyst to further study and thought rather than providing a comprehensive history of aesthetics. Seminars will focus on the five key aesthetic concepts of beauty, taste, value, interpretation and creativity. Through intensive study of these concepts, you will be introduced to a wide range of writers and philosophers of art, design and wider culture, spanning centuries of Western history.
Tutorial
Your final year tutorials are a mixture of group tutorials and individual tutorials, directly supporting you during the process of writing your final research project (special study).
Research Project
You produce a 5,000 word research project (special study) on a topic of your choice, which will relate to, and inform, your studio practice. You will be guided with a supervisor from Art & Design History and a second supervisor from the studio lecturing team.
Entry requirements
| A-Levels | BCC |
|---|---|
| UCAS Tariff Points | 104 UCAS Tariff points must come from a minimum of two A Levels (or equivalent). Additional points can be made up from a range of alternative qualifications |
| BTEC | DMM |
| Access to HE | 104 Tariff Points |
| IB | 24 |
| Irish Leaving Certificate | 104 Tariff Points from Higher Level qualifications only |
| Welsh Baccalaureate | This qualification can only be accepted in conjunction with other relevant qualifications |
| T-Levels | Merit |
| Subject Requirements | All applicants are required to bring a portfolio of your work with you. |
International entry requirements
| Specific Country Requirements | Select your country |
|---|---|
| IELTS | 6.0 overall (with reading and writing at 6.0) and no individual score lower than 5.5. We also accept a wide range of International Qualifications. For more information, please visit our English Language Requirements page. |
Careers
Fine Art has an enviable record for graduate employment. Many of our recent graduates have begun careers in lecturing, teaching, art therapy, gallery administration and curating, television, theatre, exhibition work, artist residencies, and community and public arts. Graduates also go on to run their own successful businesses and studio workshops.
The degree generates autonomy, creativity and lateral and critical thinking as well as other highly desirable practical and intellectual transferable skills that genuinely prepare you for the world of work. The integrated live projects provide valuable experience of working in the professional arena and create professional contacts with potential future employers.
A significant number of Hope graduates successfully progress to postgraduate courses each year, with recent Fine Art graduates going on to study at the Royal College of Art, Goldsmiths and Chelsea School of Art
Enhancement opportunities
SALA
The Service and Leadership Award (SALA) is offered as an extra-curricular programme involving service-based experiences, development of leadership potential and equipping you for a career in a rapidly changing world. It enhances your degree, it is something which is complimentary but different and which has a distinct ‘value-added’ component. Find out more on our Service and Leadership Award page.
Study Abroad
As part of your degree, you can choose to spend either a semester or a full year of study at one of our partner universities as part of our Study Abroad programme. Find out more on our Study Abroad page.
Tuition fees
The tuition fees for the 2025/26 academic year are £9,535* for full-time undergraduate courses.
If you are a student from the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands, your tuition fees will also be £9,535*.
The University reserves the right to increase Home and EU Undergraduate and PGCE tuition fees in line with any inflationary or other increase authorised by the Secretary of State for future years of study.
*subject to Council approval.
Additional costs
As well as your tuition fees, you also need to consider the cost of materials, which is approximately £200 per year. There are also costs for optional fieldtrips. You will be informed, with plenty of notice, about full costs of such trips.
You will also need to consider the cost of your accommodation each year whilst you study at university. Visit our accommodation pages for further details about our Halls of Residence.
Scholarships
We have a range of scholarships to help with the cost of your studies. Visit our scholarships page to find out more.
International tuition fees
The International Tuition fees for 2025/26 are £14,500.
Visit our International fees page for more information.