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As Programme Leader for Painting I feel personally that Patricia would have had a continued influence on OCA as an alumni and I have tried to preserve that influence by instigating an award at OCA in her memory and as an ongoing inspiration. The award is given to a student annually who embodied something of Patricia’s spirit and creative concerns.
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The Freelands Painting Prize has been developed to support artists at an early stage in their practice and all UK art colleges are able to nominate a single student in their final course of study to be considered for it. We convened a panel of all the tutors for the eligible students and undertook a two stage process to identify one candidate. We used a simple scoring system and, whilst everyone got some points, one person was a clear winner and that was Arlene Sharp.
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In a new development at OCA, we have introduced the new role of Programme Tutor. For painting, the programme tutors support the Head of Department and tutor team to develop the degree programme and to support the learning community to thrive and feel at home in the painting department.
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As Programme Leader for the BA (Hons) Painting and the BA (Hons) Drawing degrees at OCA I am delighted to present a curated exhibition of the work presented by the students in both departments for the Autumn 2021 assessment event.
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As Programme Leader for the painting dept, I am pleased to be in conversation this month with artist and tutor James Cowan. James has worked for OCA since September 1988 (the year I sat my A Levels) and his experience and, I would suggest in particular, his rich art historical knowledge has been an asset for students over the years. Jim is leaving us in the months ahead so I’m taking the opportunity to have a conversation with him now and hear about his own practice and also listen to his unique insight into the development of OCA.
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We would like to invite you to view below a curation of work produced in the drawing and painting departments at the Open College of the Arts. The work is from our summer 2021 assessment event and includes students at HE4 – HE6.
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I am delighted to announce that our first ever degree showcase at OCA launches this week at https://showcase.oca.ac.uk/. Students from the Creative Arts, Creative Writing, Painting, Photography and Textiles undergraduate degrees are all represented and the work is absolutely stunning.
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As programme leader for painting and drawing I have been encouraging students on both pathways to get their work out into the world. OCA student Alistair McIntyre is just embarking on his level 2 study and has an exhibition at Oliver’s Coffee House in Edinburgh which is largely his level one work.
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The Bloomberg New contemporaries is the leading graduate art prize in the UK. This year I am delighted to say that a graduate from our own painting pathway has made it through the incredibly competitive first stage of the process.
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Words had always had special meaning for me and many times poetry formed the basis of the creative process. I didn’t question this any more and it seemed that the process into the painting flowed with such unquestioning ease. I had found my voice! I had found me!
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