MA Fine Art

Our studio-based MA Fine Art course provides an opportunity for you to further explore, test and challenge your creative ideas in a supportive, professional environment.

You will benefit from links we have with external arts organisations in Cambridge, including Curwen Print Study, Cambridge Artworks, Wysing Art Centre and galleries and exhibition spaces, both in Cambridge and further afield.

We also have strong connections with the Printmaking pathway on the MA Fine Art programme at UAL, Camberwell College of Art, and since 2017, we have taken part in an annual MA Fine Art Inter-Institutional Symposium, which we hosted at ARU in June 2023. This included 47 students from ARU, AUB, BCU, NUA, Leeds, Nottingham Trent and Farnham.

We encourage our students to visit the multiple exhibitions in London (only one hour away) and promote student participation in open and prestigious competitions and prizes. For students specialising in Printmaking, Curwen Print Study offer the Art Scholars Curwen lithography Bursary & Residency award, which is open to students studying within the eastern region.

This postgraduate degree in Fine Art will further prepare you for life as a practising artist and develop important transferable skills in writing proposals, exhibition practice, curating, research and critical writing. These will be invaluable skills for alternative arts careers in curating, museum and gallery education or management, or teaching.

Course Leader: Dr Véronique Chance

Recent student and graduate success

MA Fine Art Student Ric Pimentel won the Arts Scholars Curwen Lithography Bursary 2024, and will now attend a fully-funded ten-day residency at the Curwen Print Study Centre in Suffolk.

Sara Clark and Niall MacCrann (2023 graduating students) were both selected for the 2023 Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair. Niall was also selected for the International Original Print Exhibition at the Bankside Gallery, London, winning the East London Printmakers’ award.

Sarah Strachan (MA Fine Art 2022) and Ayeshah Zolghadr (MA Printmaking 2022) launched their ongoing collaborative project, The Anxiety Of Interdisciplinarity, with an exhibition of 37 artists for the Impact 12 International Printmaking Conference in Bristol in 2022. A second iteration featuring 40+ artists, The Anxiety Of Interdisciplinarity 2.0, was held at the Art at the ARB in Cambridge in September 2023.

Ayeshah Zolghadr and Sarah Strachan won the first Curwen Print Scholars Bursary Award in 2022, which culminated in a residency and exhibition, Boundary Objects, at the new Curwen Print Study Centre premises in Great Thurlow in November 2022.

Sarah Strachan was selected for the 2023 Aesthetica Art Prize, and has displayed her work in group exhibitions including: Fresh at the British Ceramic Biennial (2021), London Art Biennale (2021), Newplatform.art (2022) and Fresh Air Sculpture (2022). Sarah was also awarded the Art Resilience Sculpture Award, and won the ARU Sustainability Art Prize in 2021 and 2022.

Ayeshah Zolghadr also won the Trinity Wharf Buoy 2020 Student Prize for her work Circling the Square I, and the Cambridge Artworks Award for her MA Show in 2022.

Lon Chircop (MA Printmaking 2022) was a runner-up in the 2022 Cambridge Artworks Award, and one of the selected artists at the Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair 2022 with his lithography print Out of Focus. He has also won awards for his literary works – his debut novel Mitt Elf Isem Ieħor: HappyVeganGirlJules won the 2020 Literary Contest Of Novels For Youth in Malta and was a hit at the Malta Book Festival 2021. His second book Fil-Ħajja Li Jmiss u Drammi Oħra tat-Triq, a collection of short plays, was published by Merlin Publishers in 2022. He wrote both the music and lyrics for the song Fil-Kexxun, which won the 46th edition of L-Għanja tal-Poplu.

Joe Dean (MA Fine Art 2022) showed his work in the Woolwich Print Fair 2022, along with Lon Chircop and Sachiko Purser (2021). He also showed work in Ayeshah Zolghadr and Sarah Strachan’s The Anxiety of Interdisciplinarity exhibition at the Impact 12 International Multidisciplinary Printmaking Conference and in Cambridge. He was additionally selected for the 2020 Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize.

Kate Green (MA Fine Art 2022) showed her MA final work at the the Chaya Art Awards in 2023, in London at the Barge House Gallery, Oxo Tower Wharf, winning the Public Choice Award. Alongside fellow graduate Ewa Pandera (2021), she took up a Caranvanserai residency at Cambridge ArtWorks during 2023.

Ewa Pandera held her solo exhibition The Forest as a result of her MA Show award, at Cambridge Artspace in June 2022. She has also successfully shown work as part of the Window Wanderland in 2022 and 2023.

Katy Drake (MA Printmaking 2021) is studying an Advanced Masters in Antwerp at the Sint Lucas Art School. She has collaborated with Kath Van Uytrecht (MA Printmaking 2020) on an artist residency project, Giving Voice, and artist book/print commission, Illuminating Knowledge, for the Society of Antiquaries, presented at the the Symposium Beyond Notability at the Society of Antiquaries for International Women’s Day 2024. They have also been working on a collaborative project with the Whipple Museum in Cambridge.

Anna Dermitzaki (MA Fine Art 2021) is Exhibitions Assistant at the Eden Project in Cornwall, Collective Producer for Tate St Ives, and a Trustee for the AUP Charitable Trust. She has exhibited widely and collaborated on a residency with Katy Drake at Cambridge Artworks and Artspace in October 2023.

Salvador Jiminéz Donaire Martinez (2019) received his PhD from the University of Seville in 2024, with the highest possible distinction in Spain (“Cum laude”) and an International Mention. He has since been hired by his faculty as a Substitute Professor. Salvador has received grants and awards from the Miró Mallorca Foundation, the historic Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid, the Martín Chirino Foundation, and the Antonio Gala Foundation. He also won the 25th European Plastic Arts Contest at the University of Seville in 2019.

Svetlana Atlavina (2019) has received two Developing Your Creative Practice (DYCP) grants from the Arts Council England and another from a-n, the Artists Information Company to further her work in developing art workshops for NHS staff at Fulbourn Mental Health Hospital in Cambridge. She has also been developing new artworks using augmented reality and AI and is an Associate Lecturer in Fine Art at Buckinghamshire New University.

Ian Phillips McLaren (MA Fine Art 2021) has been selected for many prestigious exhibitions He also teaches at London Met and is an an Associate Lecturer on the BA Photography and the MA Fine Art courses at ARU.

Sandra Scott (2020) took up her ‘caravanserai’ residency at Cambridge Artworks in 2022 and has been largely responsible for the development of the Cambridge Black Creatives art group, who meet at Cambridge ArtSpace fortnightly on Thursdays.

Deborah Suzanne Lander (2021 graduate) has been instrumental in the redevelopment and re-opening of the art gallery The Minories in Colchester, as an ongoing curatorial project through the establishment of the charity We are the Minories.

Emily Godden (2019) has won several awards as a creative technologist and artist, most notably for their award winning social enterprise Virtually There Studio, creating exhibitions, experiences and educational opportunities to benefit both the environment and personal wellbeing. Emily regularly works with local organisations such as Cambridge Makespace and Collusion, and now leads the BA Digital Media Production course at ARU.

Eleanor Breeze (MA Fine Art 2016) was in the prestigious Bloomberg New Contemporaries exhibition in 2017, and has exhibited in numerous high profile exhibitions since, including a solo show at The Broadway Gallery in Letchworth 2021. She is one of the founder members of Cambridge community-led company Together Culture, working towards creating a more equitable and ecological creative economy.