MFA Illustration

Do you have an existing Illustration practice ready to be taken to the next level? Do you want to join a community of creative practitioners to debate and challenge your work?

Whether you have recently finished an undergraduate degree, or are returning to learning, this could be the postgraduate course for you. As a student on our Illustration MFA you will develop a deeper knowledge of your creative practice. Experiment, explore and enable a personal practice to develop, as well as professionalising your approach.

Identify and explore the qualities that this stage of your career requires. Expand your material intelligence through lectures, seminars, tutorials, critiques, briefs and live projects, field trips and participatory events. Explore your own potential as a citizen of the world who understands their creative work both in terms of ethics and social justice.

Build on your knowledge of illustration through creative thinking and critical theory. Our lecturers and technicians will support your independent work. Your experience in professional and scholarly fields will become integral to your studio practice.

Special features of this course include:

• Guest speakers and masterclasses
• Access to specialist studios and workshop spaces
• National and international field trips
• Group exhibitions
• Networking opportunities
• Opportunities to engage with staff research
• Opportunities to present your work at student symposiums

Qualifications

Entry onto this postgraduate course requires a minimum of a 2:1 undergraduate degree in a related subject.

If your undergraduate degree is not in Fine Art or a related discipline but you can provide a strong portfolio of visual work, your application will be considered.

International Students

If you're an international student, you'll need to demonstrate experience, or qualifications equivalent to those above.

If your first language is not English you must show evidence of English Language competence at IELTS level 6.0 or equivalent (with no skill below 5.5).

Interview

Applicants will be invited to an interview.

• Before the interview, you will need to provide an artist's statement that explores your studio practice as a research activity. This must indicate how your work relates to comparable practices, as well as theoretical and contextual ideas relevant to their discipline. The statement should specify what kind of questions your practice deals with and identify the processes of rigorous exploration and experimentation you will employ to answer them. (max 750 words)
• Your artist’s statement should be accompanied by a digital portfolio of work. The portfolio should contain examples of resolved work and documentation of works in progress with a focus on recent practice. Provide captions with titles, dates and information about materials and dimensions (durations). Where necessary, give very brief descriptions that may help explain aspects of the work.
• At your interview, you will be asked to give a short presentation about your work, showing a selection of your portfolio and exploring your work’s ideas. Physical work can be seen if strictly necessary.
• We are happy to arrange interviews via Microsoft Teams for overseas students, and for UK student on request.

APEL policy

If you can't meet these minimum requirements it may be possible to take into account evidence of Accreditation of Prior Experiential Learning (APEL) as an alternative method of meeting the programme’s entry requirements. In such a case, appropriate references and records of employment might be presented to support the applicant’s case for admission.