Key Details

  • Available at:
    Parc Menai
  • Study Mode:
    Part-time, Full-time
  • Course Length:

    Full-time: 3 years; Part-time: 6 years

    Monday, Tuesday & Thursday, 9:10am - 3:10pm

  • UCAS Codes:
    W190
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BA (Hons) Fine Art

Degrees (Higher Education)

Part Time

If you are applying to study part-time you can apply directly to the campus of your choice.

Parc Menai

Full Time

There are two ways to apply to study for a full-time higher education course - either through UCAS or directly to the college.

Applying through UCAS:
You should apply through UCAS if you are currently studying for A Levels, a vocational Level 3 course (i.e. BTEC) or an Access to Higher Education qualification, or if you wish to apply to more than one higher education provider.

Applying to College:
If you only want to study at the college, or if you already have the qualifications/experience to meet the requirements for your course, you should apply directly to the campus of your choice.

Parc Menai

Course Description

The course develops Fine Art practise with students developing specialisms that include painting, printmaking, sculpture, video and installation.

Level 4 modules

  • Materials & Methods 1
  • Concepts and Practice in Fine Art
  • Introduction to Visual Research in Fine art
  • Contextualising Art & Design 1
  • Site Context and Practice 1
  • Deconstruction and Reconstruction

Level 5 modules

  • Research and Practice in Fine Art
  • Contextualising Art & Design 2
  • Materials and Methods in Fine Art 2
  • Developing Studio Practice
  • Site Context and Practice 2

Level 6 modules

  • Dissertation / Imaginary museum
  • Independent study 1 - Research & Make
  • Locating Professional Practice
  • Independent study 2 - Exhibit

Additional information

More detailed information on Modules is to be found in the ‘Additional Campus/Course Information’ section.

Entry Criteria

Language Requirements:

  • GCSE in Welsh or English as first language, grade C/4 or above
  • Any degrees, diplomas or certificates eligible should have been taught and assessed in Welsh or English, or
  • For overseas applicants, for entry onto Level 4, English fluency to IELTS 5.5 or higher (with no element less than 5.0)
  • For overseas applicants, for entry onto Levels 5 or above, English fluency to IELTS 6.0 or higher (with no element less than 5.5)

Typical Academic requirements:

  • a minimum of 64 UCAS tariff points in a main level 3 qualification, usually gaining a pass in at least one relevant subject which could include: A Levels, BTEC, International Baccalaureate, ACCESS to HE; or NVQ Level 3, Foundation Diploma, Foundation Studies, Access to HE; many additional qualifications from Wales, England and Scotland are accepted to support the UCAS points in addition to the relevant subject, such as the Welsh Baccalaureate.

Equivalent international qualifications are acceptable

For individuals who do not meet the above academic requirements we will consider a wide range of non-standard or professional qualifications and experience, through the submission of a portfolio for accreditation of prior learning (APL/APEL/RPEL), in accordance with GLlM regulations and policies.

All places are subject to a satisfactory portfolio interview.

Academic Requirements to enter a programme at Level 5

Entry onto level 5 will be considered on an individual basis in line with GLlM credit transfer policy, based on previous successful study of 120 credits per level in a compatible qualification (within the time frame outlined in the policy). Or by supporting their application with the submission of a portfolio for accreditation of prior learning (APL/APEL/RPEL), in accordance with GLlM regulations and policy.

All places are subject to a satisfactory portfolio interview.

Academic Requirements to enter a programme at Level 6

Entry onto level 6 will be direct for those progressing students from the GLlM Foundation Degree Art and Design to the respective GLlM Bachelor Degree (Hons) Fine Art for level 6 entry, after successful completion of the Foundation Degree.

Entry onto level 6, for external applicants, will be considered on an individual basis in line with GLlM credit transfer policy, based on previous successful study of 120 credits per level in a compatible qualification (within the time frame outlined in the policy). Or by supporting their application with the submission of a portfolio for accreditation of prior learning (APL/APEL/RPEL), in accordance with GLlM regulations and policy.

All places are subject to a satisfactory portfolio interview

If your qualifications do not meet the entry requirements listed above, we would still encourage you to apply for the course you're interested in, as many of our courses will consider learners based on their previous work and skills experience rather than their qualifications.

Delivery

Studio and workshop projects, group critiques, lectures, tutorials, seminars and site visits.

Timetable

  • Full time: 3 days per week contact, 2 days self-directed study over 3 years
  • Part-time infill on full-time programme over six years

Fees

Visit our course fees page for information on full and part-time degree course fees.

Financial Support

Visit our financial support page for information on the range of support available.

More detailed information on other costs associated with your course and work placements/work experience (if applicable) will be outlined in the programme validation document and explained to you at your interview.

Additional Costs

Additional costs may be associated with the following:

  • All students are expected to participate in study visits/excursions and should budget approximately £250 for this.
  • Annual £30 Studio Fee - contribution towards the cost of essential and bespoke consumables and materials utilised during the studio sessions.
  • Art materials required for independent study and practical modules - materials/ equipment lists are given at the beginning of Year 1
  • Additional transport costs for Gallery /Exhibition visits
  • Additional costs that may be needed for exhibition purposes.

Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol's Incentive Scholarship

Find out more about the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol's Incentive Scholarship on their website.

For more information on the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol’s Scholarships, or for assistance in completing the application, please contact Grŵp Llandrillo Menai’s Branch Officers on – colegcymraeg@gllm.ac.uk

Start date

September

Contact

For specific course enquiries, please contact:

Helen Jones (Programme Leader): jones11h@gllm.ac.uk

Sera Williams (Administration): willia22s@gllm.ac.uk

For general enquiries about our degrees, please contact: degrees@gllm.ac.uk

Assessment

Formative Assessment takes the form of:

  • Individual Tutorials
  • Group Tutorials
  • Self Assessment
  • Peer Assessment
  • Group Critique

Summative assessments take the form of:

  • Portfolio
  • Blog Reviews
  • Viva
  • Dissertation/ Catalogue website
  • Presentation
  • Essay
  • Sketchbook
  • Final piece
  • Exhibition
  • Reflective statement
  • Dissertation proposal

Feedback

Where relevant, assessments will be marked and returned to students with constructive and developmental feedback. Effective feedback combines information which enables students to understand the strengths and limitations of their past performance, and information which enables them to recognise how future performance can be improved. Students will be provided with feedback in a timely manner and this feedback will justify how the grade has been awarded. Students will have the opportunity to reflect on the feedback given and identify their strengths, things they found challenging and areas for development that they will feed forward to their next assessment. Feedback will include linking evidence to assessment criteria to demonstrate how the student will have met the learning outcomes.

Progression

  • Further study to MA and PHD Level
  • Curator and Exhibition Officers in Galleries and Museums
  • Teaching (Primary, Secondary, and Further Education)- This Programmes does not lead to Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) but may provide an opportunity for graduates to proceed to QTS via a Postgraduate Certificate in Education or other QTS awarding route
  • Art Therapy
  • Arts Administration
  • Technical Support in Galleries and Museums
  • Freelance Filmmaking
  • Artist in Residence schemes in a variety of contexts
  • Running creative workshops

Campus Information Parc Menai

Course description

The BA in Fine Art at Coleg Menai aims to be a challenging and exciting experience taught by practising artists with National and international reputations. This course offers learners the chance to explore personal themes, ideas and creative concerns through a wide variety of disciplines including: drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking and multimedia activity.

Creative futures modules develop various projects with external partners and organisations; these equip learners with an understanding of the wider opportunities for a vocation within the Arts sector.

Unit information

For every 10 credits, students should engage with around 100 notional hours of learning. This will be approximately 30% direct learning contact and 70% independent student learning.

Year 1 (Level 4)

Visual Research in Fine Art (20 credits, compulsory)

This module will lead students through individual work programmes on the intensify drawing and information-gathering processes. This will include the introduction to visual grammar with visual responses from a broad range of sources, and introduce a broad approach to visual research including objective, expressive approaches and risk taking and experimentation working in different 2D and 3D materials. Portfolio 100%.

Materials and Methods 1 (20 credits, core)

This module aims to encourage a consideration of the various materials and means of expression employed in contemporary visual art. It will enable the student to acquire independent and collaborative making, thinking and organisational skills, as well as developing technical competence in a range of practical skills, giving a foundation in good working practices and health and safety issues. Students will learn to identify the interaction between materials, processes and ideas and engage in consideration of how their own visual ideas can be expressed through appropriate methods and materials. Portfolio 100%.

Concepts and Practice in Fine Art (20 credits, compulsory)

This module aims are to encourage and develop speculative enquiry, risk taking and critical thinking, establishing a framework for the discussion of practice as research. Students will be introduced to a range of media, practice, strategies and methodologies which will enable students to develop a variety of outcomes from research material, as well as developing the skills of recording through visual and conceptual research.

Deconstruction and Reconstruction (20 credits, compulsory)

The aim of the module is for students to gain an understanding of the rationales behind making and unmaking and the importance of the relationship between deconstruction and construction, both intellectually and practically. This will encourage and develop speculative enquiry and critical thinking and aid students to determine how the use of materials and processes, strategy and practice, can inform and contribute to the realisation of creative intentions. Portfolio 100%.

Site Context and Practice 1 (20 credits, core)

This module aims to develop students’ understanding of contemporary art practice through the investigation of professional practice and making work in relation to physical and/or social contexts. It will encourage students to develop their own visual language outside the studio context in relationship to location and audience response, and develop students in locating their practice in the wider world socio politically with regard to the specific location and context. Portfolio 50%, Blog 50%.

Contextualising Contemporary Practice 1 (20 credits, core)

The module purpose is to construct a critical framework for student’s studio practice. It aims to introduce the historical debates and current issues which inform contemporary fine art, and encourage contextual thinking and critical awareness. It will engage students in research as an essential element practice and familiarize students with the critical language necessary to discuss the contexts of their own emerging practice through discussion and reflective writing. Presentation 25%, Blog 25%, Essay 50%.

Year 2 (Level 5)

Research and Practice (30 credits, compulsory)

This module will encourage students to develop a critical investigative and analytical approach to the development and synthesis of theory and practice in their work and that of others. The module aims to foster a reflective and evaluative approach to developments emerging the individuals’ creative practice, enabling them to develop a personal language. This module increases student responsibility for the direction of study and the location of practice and prepares them for more independent study at Level 6. Portfolio 80%, Presentation 20%.

Developing Studio Practice (30 credits, compulsory)

This module promotes students’ effective use of the studio to develop their individual Fine Art practice. The module builds on the experience gained within level 4 and serves to establish choice of specialist practice through which students will realise personal creative intentions. Through a process of continuous practice-based research they are supported to expand on ideas with further experimentation, so as to develop and extend their own formal language within the context of contemporary Fine Art. Portfolio 100%.

Materials and Methods 2 (20 credits, compulsory)

This module will build upon prior workshops provided in Lens Based media, Sculpture, Printmaking and Digital Media in level 4. Learners will expand on a range of processes, materials and techniques initiated in level 4, with relevant health and safety instruction. This module is supported through dialogue with the individual student‘s thematic studio practice. Portfolio 100%.

Site Context and Practice 2 (20 credits, compulsory)

Designed to help develop the skills that will equip students for a professional life in work. They will develop upon and enhance relevant strategies for planning, curating, exhibiting, and documenting work in a variety of ways, including publication and exhibition via analogue, digital and online media. By testing and determining relevant strategies for making and displaying practical work to peers, teaching staff and external audiences, they will develop further awareness of the importance of editing, evaluating and adapting the work they have made in specific contexts. Portfolio 50%, Blog 50%.

Contextualising Contemporary Practice 2 (20 credits, compulsory)

This module builds upon the historical framework explored in contextualising practice at level 4. Contemporary practices of Fine Art Practice are interrogated, debated and displayed. It supports the student’s further steps as practitioners providing an understanding of the thematic developments in contemporary Fine Art Practice through seminars presentations, discussions and exhibition visits. Students will explore these thematic trends in post-modernity in order to understand the development and contemporary situation of their studio practice. There is an emphasis on the development of key analytical, critical and research skills, and through close engagement with visual sources historical texts and contemporary critical writing. Students will begin to identify the tools necessary to discuss, conceptualise and reflect on their own emerging practice. Presentation 25%, Blog 25%, Essay 50%.

Year 3 (Level 6)

Independent Study 1 – Research and Make (40 credits, compulsory)

The principal aim of the first Honours course module, is to provide the student with the sound intellectual and practical base which will nurture the progression of their work through to the particular demands of the Degree exhibition at the conclusion of the Exhibition Module. The ability to synthesise the various elements which make up the fine art process and to respond creatively is essential to preparing students for life in the arts sector as practitioners working outside of the education system. Students will plan, negotiate and bring to conclusion a body of work. Portfolio 100%.

Locating Professional Practice 3 (20 credits, compulsory)

At this stage in the course students take greater responsibility for their planned and organised engagement. Building on previous achievements in the professional presentation of their work to an audience, in this module students develop their exhibition skills and extend their ability to document and communicate their work in a way that is fitting to their individual professional goals. Portfolio 75%, Presentation 25%.

Critical / Curatorial Contextual Studies 3 (20 credits, compulsory)

Building on the links between research and practice embedded at Level 5. This module aims to develop and consolidate a student's ability to undertake a major research project which is linked to their studio practice. It enables student's to carry out an extended body of research on an agreed topic of their choice (appropriate to critical and contextual inquiry) which has currency in the realm of contemporary fine art practice .The module enables students to initiate and produce a sustained body of work that synthesises their critical evaluation, theoretical understanding and its relationship with studio practice. Dissertation 90%, Dissertation proposal 10%.

Independent Study 2 – Exhibit (40 credits, compulsory)

This concluding module has as its main focus the degree show. It also marks a transition to life beyond university, for which the programme has been a preparation throughout. The degree exhibition will consider methods of presenting work, critical self-evaluation, professional experience in working with an external gallery and developing individual and group communication and organisational skills. The blog remains important throughout and you will receive specific verbal and written feedback on your studio practice and developing critical awareness during the module. This should reflect a strong critical engagement with the week by week progression of the course. Portfolio 100%.

Other details

Course type: Degrees (Higher Education)

Level: 6

Awarding Body: Bangor University

Bilingual:

33% of the course is available through the medium of Welsh.

Awarding Body

DiscoverUni

Full-Time course