Academic Schools
Gray's School of Art
Academic Schools
Gray's School of Art
Gray’s School of Art is an influential, multidisciplinary art school that has been leading and defining creative culture and development for over 130 years.
We are ranked 1st in Scotland and 3rd in the UK for student satisfaction in Art and Design (Complete University Guide 2025)
About the School
Set within a stunning natural landscape on RGU's riverside campus, our school comprises of a vibrant mix of students studying undergraduate, postgraduate, doctoral and short courses across both fine art and design. We offer an environment that enables your imagination to flourish and a platform for establishing your own future professional career.
We are developing and empowering the next generation of creative graduates who are critically and socially engaged, enterprising and capable of thriving in a variety of professional contexts. In our inclusive and supportive spaces, creative-thinkers who want to express their uniqueness and make positive change can thrive.
Our undergraduate, postgraduate, and short course portfolio explores a wide range of both general and specialist subjects within the creative disciplines. You will apply your newfound knowledge and skills within your chosen course and explore the principles and boundaries of your field through our wide range of learning opportunities and exciting experiences.
The curriculum and teaching methodologies are student centred, meaning that you will learn by discovering, defining, developing and delivering, and through thinking, doing, making, designing, collaborating and challenging perceptions. You will be encouraged to collaborate with practitioners from other disciplines and external agencies to develop new ways of working within the creative economy.
You will participate in a wide range of exhibitions both internally within the school and externally at a number of partner venues. In Year 3 semester 2, you will have the opportunity to experience international field study trips and our international study exchanges with our partner colleges in France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Finland, Denmark, Canada and the Czech Republic.
We place an emphasis on developing your graduate attributes and professional skills. Our graduates often apply their entrepreneurial skills to seek out funding opportunities for setting up their own new businesses, while others have pursued further study through PhD's.
We expect our students to be pro-active and ambitious, we develop confident communicators who are responsible and ethically aware citizens, capable of developing critically creative responses and solutions that are environmentally friendly and often benefit our local communities and wider society.
Awards and Recognition
- 1st in Scotland and 3rd in the UK for student satisfaction in Art and Design (Complete University Guide 2025)
- 1st in Scotland for overall student satisfaction in Art (National Student Survey 2023, excludes colleges, small, specialist and private providers)
- 1st in Scotland and top 3 in the UK for teaching quality in Art and Design (The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2024)
Connect with us
Latest News
Facilities
Our learning environment reflects our emphasis on experiential learning and critical reflection. We value and understand the importance of the traditional, hand making skills that underpin our creative disciplines, combining these with the latest digital and emerging technologies to prepare you for employment and a creative future.
Our hand to high-tech approach ensures students have access to dedicated studio spaces as well as our unique range of analogue workshops. These include photography darkrooms, printmaking studios, ceramics and jewellery workshops and fashion manufacturing facilities.
Our facilities will also afford you access to the latest digital technologies, including photography studios and a video editing suite, alongside digital manufacturing tools such as 3D modellers and scanners, laser cutters, fabric printers and direct to media printers.
Placements & Professional Links
Placements
The school has an established network of professional connections within a wide variety of companies, creative agencies, public bodies, charities and partner organisations. This regularly affords our students the opportunity to meet with and speak to professional artists, practitioners, and designers both nationally and internationally. Through these experiences you will develop your communication skills and learn how to present and promote your work internally to your peers and externally within the creative economy. You will also develop your professional and commercial understanding through live project briefs with clients and external partners, and participate in national and international competitions.
Work Placement Opportunities
Our undergraduate courses offer a 10-week work-based placement or, alternatively, a 4-week work experience opportunity in Year 3 semester 2. A wide variety of options exist with local, national, and international companies and partner organisations from across the cultural sector and creative industries. Our students have recently completed placements with FortyTwo Studio, Imajica Brand Evolution, Timorous Beasties, Bespoke Atelier, TellyJuice, J.W Anderson, Jonathan Saunders, House of Holland, Iona Crawford Atelier, Dezion Studio and Vakvrouwen, amongst others.
Placements provide you with the opportunity to apply your skills within a real-world context and learn from professionals working in a range of roles across a variety of employment settings.
Affiliations and Industry Links
A wide range of partners support the delivery of our curriculum, including:
Look Again, part of Gray’s School of Art, is a creative team of producers, facilitators, and curators. Their primary objective is to deliver a year-round programme of public engagement projects. This involves art in public space, exhibitions, learning programs, and social events. Their mission is to unite, showcase, and empower the creative community in Northeast Scotland.
G@G’s is our annual visitor programme that invites a series of national and international artists and designers, writers, and curators to present lectures and seminars.
DLLT is a registered charity that operates and delivers a number of free to access programmes and positive destination activities for young people in Aberdeen.
INTL highlights outstanding creative work and celebrates the people behind it. They promote the Scottish creative industries and aim to build a supportive community through inspiring events, international projects, and a global awards programme.
D&AD represents global creative, design and advertising communities and celebrates brilliance in commercial creativity.
The RSA embodies a wealth of professional experience in fine art and architecture with members taking a leading role in higher education and in many of Scotland's cultural institutions.
RGU’s EIG helps drive innovation and support new enterprises to create impact and contribute to Scotland’s economic prosperity.
SDS supports our students to start up and develop their own new businesses.
ACCESS RGU works in partnership with various schools across Scotland to provide a range of art and design engagement programmes throughout the year. These programmes aim to support the transition from school to university.
Engage is our creative development programme delivered at Gray’s School of Art in our purpose-built studios and workshops.
Research
Our research and scholarly activities and associated projects explore a range of themes including Inclusive & creative societies, health and wellbeing, living in a digital word, environment energy and sustainability and pedagogy. Staff are active across a range of contemporary research initiatives and projects, locally, nationally and internationally.
The school maintains active research links with key organisations in the city and region, including Aberdeen Art Gallery, Peacock Visual Arts, Denis Law Legacy Trust, Grampian Hospital Arts Trust, Deveron Arts Scottish Sculpture Workshop, and Hospitalfield.
Staff and students regularly explore contemporary art and design practice through the lens of societal impact, philosophical and political value, and through our knowledge of historical contexts and emerging futures.
The school is a member of the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities, that provides doctoral training, including support for practice-led PhDs and we offer research degrees part time and full time at MPhil, MRes and PhD level in art and design.
We are particularly interested in applications in selected topic areas:
- Digital Futures
- Design in Society
- Socially Engaged Art Practice
- Creative and Cultural Ecologies
- Curatorship
- Contemporary Craft
Current PhD's in Gray’s School of Art include:
- Fi Loveday – PhD aligned with Augmented Fashion entitled “An investigation into the potentialities for the application of immersive technologies within small-scale textile craft practices in Scotland” (2021 – 2025). Supervised by Josie Steed and Dr Jon Blackwood.
- Marie-Chantal Hamrock - a practice-led PhD on "Curating the City" (2024- 2028). Supervised by Dr Jon Blackwood and Dr Laura Leuzzi.
- Alison Scott – PhD aligned with Treescapes (2024- 2028). Supervised by Dr. Jennifer Clarke and Dr. Chris Fremantle.
Our research programme is an innovative and challenging base for practice-led research, in which the application of art, design and craft practice forms a significant part of the inquiry.
Our Research Staff
Staff
Our academic, technical and support staff have a breadth of experience in education, teaching, and professional practice.
With our support, you will develop your creative confidence and identity enabling you to pursue a creative career within a variety of professional contexts.
Capturing the talents and achievements of our final year students at Gray’s School of Art.
Our Portfolio Guidance courses will help to prepare you for applying for an undergraduate course at Gray's School of Art.
Engage is a new creative development programme designed at Gray’s School of Art and delivered in our purpose-built studios and workshops.
At Gray’s School of Art, our students gain valuable professional skills through project work and interaction with industry.
Learn about the wide range of projects and activities that our staff are currently delivering across the city and beyond.
Graduates of Gray’s School of Art go on to have exciting and inspiring careers. Read their stories to learn more about their journeys once graduating.
Mobile Art School is an outreach project, aimed at engaging and connecting schools across Aberdeen and beyond, to improve the awareness and understanding of the creative industries.
Look Again Aberdeen is based at Gray's School of Art and delivers exhibitions, talks, design markets and the Look Again festival, as well as programmes and events to support and grow the art and design community in the North East of Scotland, developing employability and encouraging retention of creative talent in the region.
Guest at Gray’s is a series that invites inspiring professional practitioners working across the spectrum of contemporary art and design disciplines to deliver a talk to Gray’s School of Art students every Friday lunchtime.
The Graduate in Residence scheme enables Gray’s graduate fine artists and designers with recognised expertise and experience to participate in the delivery of the fine art/design curriculum.
Our sparkling city of Aberdeen, in the North-east of Scotland, has been named one of the 'best places to go' in the UK in 2025 by Condé Nast Traveller Magazine.
Event
Starts: Thursday 09 January 2025
Are you thinking of applying to study at RGU? Would you like some expert advice on how to make the most of your UCAS application? Book a 1:1 appointment with a member of our team to put the finishing touches to your personal statement.
Event
Starts: Thursday 16 January 2025
Are you thinking of applying to study at RGU? Would you like some expert advice on how to make the most of your UCAS application? Book a 1:1 appointment with a member of our team to put the finishing touches to your personal statement.
Event
Starts: Sunday 22 January 2023
Experience one of our visit afternoon events that will provide you with a valuable chance to gain an insight into what it is like to be an undergraduate student at RGU.