About BA (Honours) in Visual Arts Practice

What is Visual Arts Practice?

Artists continually challenge ideas and practices, which is critical to encouraging debate and change in contemporary society.

The creative pathways provided embrace drawing, painting, video, sculpture, printmaking, photography, sound, installation, performance and other related techniques.

This broad and inspiring programme offers a real opportunity to explore your passion for visual art. It will educate you as artists through an integrated and multidisciplinary programme that encourages you to make a comprehensive portfolio of work, which will be tested against the "real world" situations of contemporary art practice.

The School of Creative Arts has a long, established tradition for producing some
of the nation’s finest artists. As such, we offer top-of-the-range facilities, including practical workshops, video and photography equipment and darkrooms, and significant computing and digital imaging services.

Aims and Objectives

What will I be able to do when I graduate?

Careers may arise in the creative industries, as artists, curators, arts administrators, arts mediators, art gallery directors, art teachers, community
arts coordinators, art directors, art critics and historians, film makers, image researchers, and content developers.

Postgraduate opportunities include the MA in Visual Arts Practices
(DL052) at IADT.

What subjects will I study?

• Research and Self-Directed Studio Practices leading to Exhibition Production
• Support studies, technical workshops and seminars
• History of Visual Culture
• Modernism, Postmodernism and the Avant Garde

What are the Entry Requirements?

• Leaving Certificate Examination (or equivalent) with a minimum Grade C3 in two Higher (or Common) Level papers, together with Grade D3 in four other subjects
  to include English. Foundation level Maths (D3) is acceptable
• A portfolio of relevant work
• You may be called for interview if further clarification on you portfolio is required
• Applicants with FETAC awards require distinctions in 3 (of 8) modules.
  FETAC Links for this programme are:

AACDX:Art, Craft, Design

AAXXX : Art

ACADX: Computer Aided Design

ACXXX : Creative Craft

AGDXX: Graphic Design

EMPXX: Media Production

What should my Portfolio include?

• An edited selection of images made in a variety of media (paintings, drawings, photographs, collages, film/video, photographs of 3D work)
• Work using media such as pencils, charcoal, water colours, oils, acrylics, crayons, pastels, coloured papers, photographs, video, construction in plaster, wood, metal, wax, found objects/materials, etc
• All these media and forms need not be present but some variety in media and format is essential. The key requirement is to demonstrate inventiveness, experimentation, flexibility, stylistic variation, and visual interest
• Project work dealing with a theme of interest to you. Project work is work which demonstrates the development of an idea through a series of distinct stages from initial idea/theme, through experiment and research, to final outcome and conclusion. It may be presented in the form of project notebooks, sketches/test pieces and final outcomes, and it can be in any medium.

Can I study this programme on a flexible access basis as a mature learner?

This programme in also offered on a flexible basis through the ACCS (Accumulation of Credits and Certification of Subjects) system to facilitate non-traditional learners, mature students and part-time study options.

Please see DL044ACCS for more details.

Are there any costs for materials and/or field trips?

Approx. €1,000 to €1,500 per year. This figure excludes exceptional purchases, field trips, preparation for exhibitions, national / international competitions, etc.

“The standard of the candidates is higher than comparable institutions in the UK” – David Mabb, External Examiner, Goldsmiths College, University of London