Master of Fine Art (MFA)

  • About
  • Entry requirements
  • Resources
  • Funding and Costs
  • College preference
  • How to Utilise

About this course

The Ruskin Principal of Fine Art (MFA) degree is an intensive 1 yr studio-based programme in the practice of contemporary art. You will be role of a modest cohort on a course designed to direct and develop your artistic practice and theoretical knowledge in a supportive environment.

The programme encompasses a multifariousness of disciplines including painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, fine art writing, installation, video, sound, performance and other expanded and experimental forms in contemporary art. It aims to encourage experimentation while supporting the development of a critical focus for the work.

The MFA is located on ane flooring with a serial of individual studio spaces, alongside shared and open spaces, all of which contribute to an intimate environment of cocky-directed peer learning, supported by permanent and visiting staff of the highest calibre. It is an infrequent artistic environment, distinct from larger art schools in the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland.

The course encompasses regular 1-to-i tutorials and weekly studio seminars, focused on your art-making, your key concerns and ideas, and inter-dependent development. A plan of defended masterclasses and skill-based workshops, designed specifically for the MFA, is available aslope a weekly school-wide high profile and diverse Visiting Speakers Program.

Our studio-based learning plan is facilitated through a regular seminar series characterised by a collective dynamic of mutual participation in generous and robust give-and-take; engaging with what information technology ways to work as an creative person today and considering how an artist's work and ideas are understood in and across unlike social, artistic and intellectual contexts. As part of this holistic approach to practice and theory, dissertation tutorials with specifically allocated tutors take place on a regular basis in the studios. You are encouraged to empathize your work contextually and to discuss it in relation to contemporary, theoretical and historical discourse. Your personal artistic interests, and those of the accomplice as a whole, are embedded into tutorials, seminars and presentations, determining the management of your creative evolution, guided by the Ruskin faculty.

Y'all will also take access to humanities and sciences lectures and seminars in affiliated departments and colleges across a world-leading University. The University'due south specialised libraries are open to Ruskin students as are activities generated by the colleges. Oxford offers a broad range of cultural engagements, including the Ashmolean Museum, the Pitt Rivers Museum as well as Modern Fine art Oxford.

When starting at the Schoolhouse you will exist allocated a practise tutor who will oversee your artistic development and a dissertation tutor who will support your bookish writing. Elective tutorials with visiting tutors and speakers are also available which volition assistance strengthen your art do.

Two programmes of weekly seminars are held throughout Michaelmas and Hilary Term. The first programme allows students to present their studio work for grouping analysis whilst the second programme is dedicated to the reading and discussion of contemporary fine art and its associated history and theories.

Ruskin's technical staff are on site to offer both technical preparation and support when required. They also run a series of specialised workshops.

A variety of masterclasses, including but non limited to writing practice, functioning and inquiry methodologies, are held regularly throughout each term.

Supervision

The allocation of graduate supervision for this course is the responsibleness of the Ruskin School of Art and it is not ever possible to accommodate the preferences of incoming graduate students to work with a item fellow member of staff. Under exceptional circumstances a supervisor may be found exterior the Ruskin School of Fine art.

Assessment

The MFA volition accept three primary modes of assessment:

  • an exhibition or other presentation of a fully realised artwork or body of artworks made by y'all during the MFA programme. This will require you lot to develop, create and present a coherent, thoughtful exhibition, or other presentation as appropriate, of artwork. Other presentations may include websites, live performances, etc;
  • an extended written text of iv,000 to 6,000 words. This piece of written work will require yous to reflect upon your studio practice, drawing together aspects of the technical and formal processes of art making and because them in relation to fine art-historical contexts and theoretical debates; and
  • a portfolio of documentation of studio work. Throughout the programme, you will be required to make thorough, scholarly documentation of your work, to be submitted at the conclusion of the programme. This supports the assessment of the final exhibition or presentation in demonstrating the provenance of the processes, strategies and ideas manifest there.

Graduate destinations

Many alumni from the Ruskin have pursued careers in the fine arts as practising artists, teachers, curators and gallery professionals in both public and private galleries. Others have gone on to pursue careers in diverse areas such as education, finance, compages and the flick industry.

All graduate courses offered by the Ruskin School of Fine art

Entry requirements for entry in 2022-23

  • a starting time-course or stiff upper second-class undergraduate degree with honours in fine art or a related subject field.

However, entrance is very competitive and most successful applicants take a good start-form degree or the equivalent.

For applicants with a degree from the USA, the minimum GPA generally sought is three.75 out of four.0.

GRE General Test scores

No Graduate Record Examination (GRE) or GMAT scores are sought.

Other qualifications, evidence of excellence and relevant experience

Details of any publications and/or exhibitions you accept held that would be of interest to the assessors should exist included in the awarding.

Interviews are unremarkably held as part of the admissions process.

Although the section prefers to acquit interviews in person, overseas candidates or applicants unable to nourish are offered the option of Skype or telephone interviews. In all cases, in that location will be a minimum of ii interviewers. Boosted supporting fabric (such as a more than all-encompassing portfolio) may exist requested before the interview.

Resource

Intellectual life and customs

The Ruskin School of Fine art is home to a closely-integrated creative and intellectual culture between graduate and undergraduate programmes, students and staff. Its intimate scale fosters highly productive, informal collaborations across all parts of the school, allowing you to work closely with some of the U.k.'s leading contemporary artists, writers and art historians. Students and researchers at the Ruskin are too able to draw upon the expertise of staff, resource and facilities across the rest of the University of Oxford, including the extraordinary collections in its world-famous museums and libraries.

Studio and technical resource

The Ruskin has dedicated studio infinite for all students to piece of work together or individually, besides as workshops for specialist preparation by Ruskin tutors in digital, 2nd and 3D media. A new projection space at the Ruskin'south redeveloped Bullingdon Road site is equipped for the full breadth of contemporary art practices, from performance and digital installations to painting and sculptural work. The project infinite opens to the street for maximum public appointment with new work by students and staff. There are also communal spaces to foster dialogue and collaboration across all levels of the Ruskin'due south undergraduate and graduate programmes.

Museums and galleries

Oxford holds some of the world's richest collections of art and artefacts. The Ashmolean, Pitt Rivers Museum and Museum of Natural History are of import centres for the research and display of artefacts and artworks within the Academy of Oxford and the Ruskin has fantabulous connections with the museums' network of curators, facilities and holdings.

Oxford also hosts important exhibitions of modern and contemporary fine art. Modern Fine art Oxford has a national and international reputation for the quality of its exhibitions of contemporary fine art, and for its accompanying community and education programmes. The Ruskin works closely with Modernistic Fine art Oxford in the provision of its undergraduate and graduate courses, and Ruskin students and staff have participated in exhibitions and public presentations at Modern Art Oxford.

Libraries and archives

The University of Oxford's libraries, centred on the Bodleian, are the Uk's largest academic collection. The University'due south integrated library service comprises most 40 libraries, many offer borrowing rights. The Bodleian Library is a copyright library and as such it has long collected copies of all works published in the United Kingdom, in improver to an all-encompassing range of foreign publications. Since it is non a lending library, its holdings are immediately available on request.

A main betoken of reference for well-nigh Ruskin graduate students is the Sackler Library, one of the principal research libraries of the university, which has incorporated the collections of the former Ashmolean Library (Western art), history of art, Eastern fine art and Classics. Its holdings are in backlog of 200,000 volumes, and include monographs, catalogues, periodicals on fine and decorative fine art, theory, criticism, historiography, besides every bit the collections of Edgar Wind and Francis Haskell. All books and periodicals are open up access.

The Ruskin has its own specialised in-firm library of more than than half-dozen,500 volumes, which has been entirely reconfigured over the past iii years. Since summer 2004 the Ruskin has evolved fully operation lending and reference collections. Both collections include written material on art history, art theory, art techniques, exhibition catalogues and artists' monographs. The Ruskin holds around 20 sets of art journals and more than 2,000 fine art-related pamphlets. The library is fully integrated into the University'south electronic circulation system and a digital archive of the slide drove, comprising fifteen,000 images, is bachelor on the departmental server. Ruskin library terminals offering full admission to the electronic resources of the Academy of Oxford.

The Oxford Centre for Enquiry in the Humanities (TORCH) offers a stimulating range of interdisciplinary activities.

Further information nigh funding opportunities for this form can exist found on the school's website.

Annual fees for entry in 2022-23

The fees do non include the costs of materials that yous may utilize as part of your class. Each MFA educatee receives a materials grant of £500 from the Ruskin School of Fine art, soon subsequently arrival. On awarding to the Ruskin School of Art Graduate Studies Commission up to a farther £150 is available for preparing and installing work for the final show. The school stocks a broad range of materials, which you tin purchase at price, and students are able to infringe an extensive choice of equipment on a sign-up basis. There is no expectation for students to go far with any additional equipment or materials beyond those they may already possess. Some basic materials with very low unit costs - eg basic ironware for fixtures and fittings, glue, etc. - are available without charge. You will need to meet any course-related costs incurred in excess of the £500 plus £150 grants. In the first calendar week of the first term, all students pay an equipment deposit of £100. The deposit arrangement is to secure confronting the borrowing of departmental equipment and the eolith is returned to the student, less any costs incurred past the Schoolhouse for loss or damage, at the end of the course. MFA students stage a public exhibition of their piece of work following the final examination and they collectively raise funds for this through sponsorship, drawing sales, and other activities.

Higher preference

The following colleges have students for the Master of Fine Art:

How to apply

Queries almost the MFA can be directed to the Ruskin'southward Graduate Administrator. It is non necessary to contact a member of academic staff earlier yous apply.

Official transcript(due south)

CV/résumé

Statement of purpose/personal statement:
A maximum of 1,000 words

Your statement should exist written in English language and explain your motivation for applying for the form at Oxford, your relevant feel and education, and the specific areas that interest yous and/or you intend to specialise in.

This will be assessed for:

  • your reasons for applying
  • an understanding of your artistic work within broader contexts of contemporary art exercise and discourse
  • evidence of motivation for and understanding of the proposed area of study
  • delivery to the subject, across the requirements of the degree course
  • capacity for sustained and intense work
  • reasoning ability.

Portfolio:
Up to 15 images and/or 12 minutes of moving image or sound work

A digital portfolio of recently completed studio work documented through images or other mode of documentation is required.

Your portfolio should exist provided in digital format with your application, although you lot may be asked to bring along originals at the interview. Portfolios should be hosted on a website or service that is publicly accessible via the cyberspace, eg via Vimeo, YouTube, Flickr or your ain website.

A PDF document comprising the URL (and password, if necessary) for your portfolio should be uploaded to your awarding as written work.

The department volition not have portfolios submitted via email. If you cannot provide a web-based portfolio, please send an email to graduate@rsa.ox.air-conditioning.uk to talk over alternative arrangements.

Portfolios will exist assessed for evidence of creative thinking and artistic accomplishment, and clarity in the exposition of ideas.

References/messages of recommendation:
Three overall, of which at to the lowest degree two must generally be academic

Ideally, you should provide at least two academic references. If you have been out of instruction for a substantial menstruation of fourth dimension, you may employ upward to 2 professional references relevant to the course.

Your references will support artistic achievement and creativity, intellectual ability, academic achievement, motivation and your ability to work individually and in a group.

Application GuideApply