The Visual Art specialisation offers an immersive, studio-based environment that fosters self-directed studio practice in your choice of drawing and printmaking, painting, photography or sculpture.

The Bachelor of Fine Arts (Visual Art) is a specialist course that will help you develop practical skills and theoretical knowledge in the visual arts. Our studio and workshop facilities will provide you with the opportunity to explore both traditional and new media under the guidance of some of Australia’s most respected art educators and artists.

From the outset, you will be assigned your own studio area to investigate and experiment with a range of concepts, materials, techniques and processes, developing your unique artistic style.

Studying visual art at Melbourne will help you develop practical skills as well as the language to engage critically with your own and others’ visual art practice. This will prepare you for diverse industry career options from art curatorship to preservation.

Breadth subjects at each year level enable you to explore cross disciplinary studies from the wider University community, accessing multi-disciplinary knowledge and skills that will build on existing knowledge or present opportunities for you to investigate and develop new interests.

You will

• Obtain knowledge and skills to maintain an independent artistic practice
• Develop confidence to undertake experimental technical/artistic approaches in developing set projects
• Develop understanding of topics in contemporary art criticism and aesthetic theory
• Your studies will culminate in a resolved body of artwork for inclusion in the Graduate Exhibition.

Future pathways

Upon completion of the course, you may choose to apply for a fourth-year Honours degree. An honours year provides an intensive mode of study allowing you to master your specialisation and create a pathway into advanced graduate study options in acting.

The Bachelor of Fine Arts (Visual Art) is a three-year degree that equips graduates with the necessary conceptual and material creative knowledge to engage and thrive in the professional contemporary art industry.

The course offers immersive, integrated and experiential practice-based studio studies and critical and theoretical studies in drawing and printmaking, painting, photography and sculpture. You can select from a range of subjects that allow you to explore cross-disciplinary studies, exposing you to multi-disciplinary knowledge and skills.

Embedded in the cultural capital of Australia, you will learn from internationally recognised artists, lecturers and industry professionals. You will also have opportunities to work with visiting artists from Australia and abroad. As a graduate, you'll be equipped with the skills and critical knowledge to contribute to a diverse range of contexts including professional contemporary art practice and exhibition making. You may also develop future pathways into museum and curatorial professions, fashion, design, education and art therapy.

In the first year, you'll engage in foundational techniques to develop and strengthen your skills base enabling creative self-expression. In the second year, you'll use your knowledge to further engage with and develop your studio practice and artistic voice. In your final year of study, you'll have the unique opportunity to travel overseas and/or to involve yourself in research-based internal electives. The synthesis of these skills culminates in third year with the capstone experience of the Graduation Exhibition, a professionally curated and installed showcase of student art work from all disciplines, visited by national industry professionals, patrons, collectors and members of the general public.

Your breadth studies

As part of your course at each year level, you can select breadth subjects either from our VCA elective subjects, or explore cross disciplinary studies from the wider University community, accessing multi-disciplinary knowledge and skills that will build on existing knowledge or present opportunities for you to investigate and develop new interests.

The breadth subjects available to commencing BFA students include those in fine arts (acting, animation, dance, production, film and television, music theatre, screenwriting, theatre and visual art), as well as music education, Indigenous knowledges, law, languages, psychology, social sciences, humanities, science, marketing and many more.

More about the University’s breadth subjects

Sample course plan

View some sample course plans to help you select subjects that will meet the requirements for this bachelor.

300-point program

3 years full-time

As a graduate, gain work as a practicing visual artist and a variety of associated industries and professions including:

• Conservators
• Curators
• Designers
• Educators.

You will:

• Obtain knowledge and skills to maintain an independent artistic practice
• Develop confidence to undertake experimental technical/artistic approaches in developing set projects
• Develop understanding of topics in contemporary art criticism and aesthetic theory.

Graduate pathways

Once you've completed your undergraduate degree, you can go on to gain employment or begin a graduate degree and work towards a professional qualification such as law, engineering or medicine. Or you could join our graduate research community and contribute to our world-changing research.

Your graduate degree will be internationally recognised, and set you apart from those who study a traditional Australian single or double degree.

Explore the graduate pathways available once you complete your undergraduate degree here.

Completed secondary education recently (within the past two years); Completed some or all of a higher education qualification; Completed some or all of a VET qualification; Applicants with wo

TOEFL Internet-based test: total score of at least 79 and scores of 21 for writing, 18 for speaking, 13 for reading and 13 for listening; IELTS: total score of at least 6.5 in the Academic International English Language Testing System (IELTS), with no bands less than 6.0; Pearson Test of English Academic : overall score of at least 58 and no PTE communicative skills score below 50; Cambridge English, Advanced/Certificate in Advanced English (CAE): Cambridge English Score of at least 176 with no skill below 169; C2 Proficiency (previously called Cambridge English: Proficiency (CPE) examination): Cambridge English Score of at least 180 with no skill below 180.