UWA Handbook 2026

Major Overview

Description

The Bachelor of Arts (Fine Arts major) is an intensive studio-based course of study that prepares you for a successful career as a contemporary artist. By working closely with our staff of nationally and internationally recognised practising artists and with experts from related creative arenas such as digital arts, animation, film, environmental arts, generative AI, installation, arts and biotechnologies, living arts, drawing, painting, photography, printmaking, curatorial practice, art theory and the history of art, you will explore a range of artistic processes, techniques and technologies that will help you to establish your career in the field of contemporary arts.

The structure and programme of offerings in the UWA Fine Arts major is highly distinctive and the only one of its kind in Australia. Following a foundational first year of study in which you develop fundamental practical skills in tandem with a body of conceptual and theoretical knowledge, you then select from three specialist pathways. These focussed areas of creative practice are (a) Film, (b) Art and Biotechnologies, and (c) Art and Environment. Over the course of your second and third year of studio-based practice you incrementally develop expertise in one of these focus areas with complementary studies in the history of art and elective studies in areas that align with your individual interests and support your creative work.

Within the cutting-edge focus areas of Film, Art and Biotechnology, and Art and Environment, we foster your artistic skills across established and emergent mediums. And, by giving you the opportunity to develop those skills within settings as varied as the science laboratory or in landscapes that are undergoing rapid environmental change, the Fine Arts major gives you the opportunity to artistically articulate and debate the most challenging and difficult issues facing our world.

Outcomes

Students are able to:

1. demonstrate a comprehensive knowledge of creative art, the history of its major mannerisms, artists, theorists and formations of thought, to understand its social relevance and responsibilities, and the processes used in its formation
2. articulate the complexities of art as a socially constructed practice that is situated in time and place, and mediated by perspectives shaped by relations to ideology, politics and social intersubjectivity
3. contextualise the practice of creative forms of fine art with other forms of intellectual inquiry and appreciate the relevance of linking theory to practice in the formation of concepts, the discussion of principles and the perspectives of reception
4. use a discursive vocabulary that enables complex arguments to be clearly articulated within artworks and the evolving field of research that surrounds artistic practice and the discourse of design
5. demonstrate a high level of working skills with fine arts media and an understanding of practical methods and presentational protocols used by art to objectify ideas and concepts.

Broadening guidelines

All students studying towards a Bachelor's Degree at UWA are required to Broaden their studies by completing a minimum of four units (24 points) of study outside their degree specific major. Broadening is your opportunity to explore other areas of interest, investigate new disciplines and knowledge paradigms and to shape your degree to suit your own aspirations and interests. Many of you will be able to undertake more than this minimum amount of broadening study and we encourage you to do so if this suits your aspirations. Over the next few months you will find here some broadening suggestions related to your degree-specific major. While we know that many students value guidance of this sort, these are only suggestions and students should not lose sight of the opportunity to explore that is afforded by your Broadening Choices. Advice can also be sought from your Allocated Student Advising Office.

Courses

Fine Arts can be taken as a degree-specific major in the following degree courses:

• BP001 Bachelor of Arts
• BH005 Bachelor of Philosophy (Honours)

Units