Studio Practice, Teaching, and Research in Fine Art
Newcastle’s reputation as an art school is built on inspirational teaching, excellent studio and workshop facilities, and world-leading research and art practice by its staff. Less than 3 hours by train from London, the city has a thriving art scene with numerous artists studios and galleries. The Fine Art department is at the centre of this and provides a supportive, challenging and inspiring environment in which to study Fine Art, as well as one in which staff engage in world-leading art-historical and practice-led research.
The BA Fine Art degree at Newcastle University is ranked 2nd in the UK in the Guardian University Guide 2024, 7th in the UK – The Complete University Guide 2024 (Art and Design category), and 7th in the UK – Sunday Times Good University Guide 2024 (Art and Design category).
Staff at Newcastle are engaged with internationally-recognised contemporary art practice and research generated at the nexus of established and new practices, technologies and methodologies.
Cutting-edge practice and research in fine art by our staff, results in a vibrant, creative culture and provides the basis for our excellent teaching. We encourage students to be imaginative and creative, to question orthodoxies, to cross boundaries, and to make their own mark in the contemporary art world.
Students studying Fine Art in the art school at Newcastle are taught by a group of distinguished artists and art historians who are all active practitioners, researchers and specialists in their fields. Our research and practice is disseminated in the form of exhibitions, installations interventions, books and other publications.
Based at the very heart of Newcastle University's city-centre campus, the art school provides students, from undergraduate to postgraduate, with excellent workshops and studio spaces, support by excellent technicians, and a superb Visiting Artists Programme.
The department is committed to supporting and engaging with the full range of both traditional, contemporary and emerging studio-based practices in Fine Art; whether a student is working with painting, sculpture, printmaking, drawing, performance, film and video, digital media, or installation, we are able to provide a unique level and quality of support.
Newcastle's diverse and lively arts and cultural scene with its galleries and venues goes hand-in-hand with our continuing and distinguished history in innovative art teaching. The current breadth of staff, and the resulting breadth of practice and research in the subject area is a significant element of the vision and pedagogical stance within Fine Art at Newcastle; it is an approach that has its roots in post-war radical art education, much of which was originally developed at Newcastle.
