Private View - Wednesday 18th June 6.00pm - 8.00pm

Leah Draisey (final year fine art student) and Matt Foster (second year fine art student) have completed an impressive commission on the side of the Birmingham Mail and Post building, as part of the new Colmore Plaza development in the city centre, not far from Margaret Street. It has been a great opportunity to work collaboratively and to develop a whole range of professional skills. Cut out of sheet aluminium, sprayed red, grey and white, and floated on the wall surface, the piece is the result of months of planning and fabrication. The design, which takes it's colours from traditional newspapers, is based on notions of mapping, routes and networks.

This is one of a number of activities the School of Art has organised with the Ikon Gallery throughout the year, uniting two important centres of contemporary practice. This event, chaired by the director of the Ikon, Jonathan Watkins, explored the work of the two international artists currently showing at the Ikon and Ikon Eastside.

The MA Fine Art course is renowned regionally, nationally and internationally for the high quality of the work produced; the relationship fostered between art and philosophy defines it as unique. The course is one of the longest established courses in the country with a reputation to match its history. The educational experience it offers is intrinsically bound up with its city centre location within the Department of Art and it is this experience, alongside a sense of history and continuity that attracts artists from all over the world. This year’s show also presents the work of artists from the Art and Education course who have developed their individual practice within particular educational contexts towards the reinvigoration of art education itself.

Each year we are able to offer a £9,000 fellowship for an artist/s to work in an on-site studio in the Margaret Street building. In it's ninth year, this is made possible through the generous bequest of the Wheatley family. Each is given the opportunity, time and space to develop their practice in an acedmic context. The results are seen in September as part of the MA Fine Art final exhibition.

They also benefit from working closely with the students through tutorials, seminars, workshops and projects, may involve working together on an exhibition.