Undergraduate
Visit the University of Melbourne course site to find out more on undergraduate courses
Visual Art
Our students are taught in an immersive, studio and workshop-based environment that offers artists the opportunity to develop their technical and conceptual skills across a wide range of methodologies.
Study Visual Art at the VCA
Visual Art at the VCA focuses on independently led studio practice. You will be expected to develop studio projects that require investigation and experimentation with a range of concepts, materials, techniques and processes.
Critical and theoretical studies and professional arts practice skills subjects provide you with the skills to pursue the practice of a professional working artist, and allow you to critically engage in the debates of contemporary visual art.
Regular student exhibitions and the annual end-of-year exhibitions form an important part of the curriculum and offer the opportunity to engage the wider public in your work.
Visual Art Courses
Areas of Study
At undergraduate level, artists work within four distinct mediums: Drawing and Printmaking, Painting, Sculpture and Spatial Practice, and Photography with the opportunity to explore all mediums through related studies subjects. Graduate students’ practice incorporates the methods and ideas of a variety of these mediums.
Head of Art
Our people - Graduate, Honours, Breadth
Margaret Lawrence Gallery
I haven’t studied in an institution for a long time so I was nervous about coming back, but I’ve so far been encouraged to find that although it’s quite a formidable establishment the VCA is populated with many creative, flexible and giving individuals. There are great facilities, the lecturers are accessible and generous with their time, and much of the work the other students are doing is exciting.
Casey JenkinsMaster of Contemporary Art student
Want to know more?
Get information on the courses you’re interested in, or ask our team a question.
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VCA events
Disclosure – Graduate Dance Season
Saturday 16 Nov 2019 at 2:00pm
Presented by: Dance and Production
An evening of contemporary dance showcasing graduating students from the Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance) in new works by Alisdair Macindoe, Larissa McGowan and James O’Hara.
Generating the possible in the spaces of the unknown, the continuing and the felt, thes...
Hope Dies Last: Art at the End of Optimism Exhibition
Tuesday 12 Nov 2019 - Saturday 16 Nov 2019
Hope Dies Last: Art at the End of Optimism is an exhibition of Australian and international contemporary art presented across two sites, the Margaret Lawrence Gallery and Gertrude Contemporary. The project focuses on how artists consider the depletion of optimism, how they might envisage the end of ...
Disclosure – Graduate Dance Season
Thursday 14 Nov 2019 - Saturday 16 Nov 2019
Presented by: Dance and Production
An evening of contemporary dance showcasing graduating students from the Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance) in new works by Alisdair Macindoe, Larissa McGowan and James O’Hara.
Generating the possible in the spaces of the unknown, the continuing and the felt, thes...
Showcase
News
Meet Priya Namana, Master of Contemporary Art student at the University of Melbourne
11 November 2019
After moving to Melbourne to pursue design, Priya Namana found herself increasingly frustrated at the socio-political climate around her. She talks about how she found a const...
Meet Omar Hassan, Photography student at the University of Melbourne
14 October 2019
Omar Hassan enrolled in the VCA Art (Photography) degree straight out of high school and is determined to take each day as it comes....
An artist bears witness to those detained on Manus Island
8 October 2019
Manus Island refugee processing may be coming to an end, but new portraits shine a light on the lives left in limbo....