Fine Art
- On average, St John's accepts 1 undergraduate Fine Art student per year
- In your portfolio, we will be looking for artwork that goes beyond fulfilling school assignments, to demonstrate your own unique set of curiosities, ambitions, and energies.
- The entry requirements for this course are determined by The Ruskin School of Art.
- More information about applying to study Fine Art at Oxford can be found on the Ruskin’s website.
- General advice about applying to St John’s can be found here.
- Because of the small and studio-based nature of the subject, Fine Art students take their courses at the Ruskin School of Art, where studio practice and theory are dynamically intertwined.
- St John's fine artist students are part of a community where they can widen an already multi-disciplinary dialogue, conversing with fellow students from nearly every academic field, from literature to neuroscience.
- We offer grants that go towards the cost of arts materials.
- Our undergraduates are part of a small but close-knit group of artists at St John's, supported by tutors in fine art and art history, and by the lively presence of Fine Art DPhil students.
- The artistic life of the college is further enlivened by yearly artists in residence, and sound artists in residence, working across many media, and who live in college for a term, and engage directly with students and hold talks and workshops. Such artists have included Uriel Orlow, Anna Barham,Matmos, Rawz, Ciara Phillips, Robert Beavers, and Corin Sworn, while Turner Prize winner Elizabeth Price was previously a Helen Chadwick Fellow. Heather Agyepong will join in 2025.
- The Dolphin Gallery is run by the St John's Arts Officer, providing an experimental space open to bookings by all Ruskin students, while the Barn in the Kendrew Quadrangle hosts ambitious exhibitions, as well as acting as a space for workshops and activities in art, film, music and drama.
- Our graduates have been successful in many fields, as fine artists, curators, critics, writers, teachers, designers, and directors in the creative industries. Many pursue postgraduate degrees.
- Graduates will leave college as independent artists, able to conceive, think through, and realise complex creative projects. These transferrable skills will equip them to continue making art, or to tackle other forms of critical and imaginative work.
Watch a St John's student talking about studying Fine Art:
