Fine Art

'Thinking through making and making things happen' is the ethos around which BA Fine Art at Chelsea is structured. The course provides a critically creative environment where you can develop your own practice. 

Your experience is based around a series of events that include on and off-site exhibitions, performance, publications, presentations, symposia and screenings that are aimed to give you experience of real-world practice. 

We encourage open and exploratory thinking. You will gain the confidence, experience and skills to play an effective role as a professional artist on an international stage. 

What to expect 

• A broad-based fine art course that brings together a wide range of specialised areas including film, video, digital media, sound, print, performance, painting, sculpture and drawing 
• To be encouraged to take risks, experiment and test your ideas through new ways of working 
• A programme of tutorials, seminars, lectures, workshops, exhibitions and live projects that will support you in developing your practice and gain an awareness of the discourses particular to it 
• To be part of a community of artists that will explore ideas through making work 
• To have significant control over what you learn, the pace at which you learn and how you might demonstrate what you have learnt 
• To be encouraged to explore how art can lead an interrogation of the role of class, race, gender, sexuality, disability, age, language or belief in the construction of society now and in the future
• The course encourages students to take an ethical, inclusive and sustainable approach to working and exhibiting 
• An approach to theory that treats it as practice, bringing together intellectual frameworks from multiple approaches, perspectives and methodologies to help you understand and explore the context within which you are working 
• Facilities in the college's studio spaces and workshops with specialist technicians on hand to offer support
• To have access to Chelsea's shared workshops. These include ceramics, casting, laser cutting, photography, audio-visual editing suite, metal and woodwork. View the Chelsea facilities 

Work experience and opportunities 

Students can also study abroad in the second year of their degree as part of the college's Erasmus scheme. 

Mode of study

BA Fine Art is offered in full-time mode. It is divided into 3 stages over 3 academic years. Each stage consists of 30 teaching weeks. You will be expected to commit an average of 40 hours per week to your course, including teaching hours and independent study. 

Graduates from BA Fine Art at Chelsea are well placed to become independent practitioners in the international art scene. Others move onto postgraduate studies both in the UK and overseas. Many of our graduates have has success and won awards for their work in galleries, museums, the media and the wider creative environment. The college's alumni include many Turner Prize winners and nominees.

Alumni

• Zehra Arslan
• Jon Baker
• Lucy Beech
• Jonny Briggs
• James Capper
• Nicholas Deshayes
• Alice Evans
• Mariko Mori
• Chris Ofili
• James Richards
• Hannah Sawtell
• Mark Wallinger
• Rafal Zajko

Find out how careers and employability helps our students and graduates start their careers.