Rachel Spence reports on the contemporary artists who are responding to the hike in tuition fees for university arts courses by creating their own art schools as an extension of their work.
Artists may be among the greatest individualists in any society but some contemporary practitioners, anxious about the future of the culture, are piloting projects that aim to educate and sustain their younger peers.
Chris Ofili, one of Britain’s top contemporary painters, puts the problem succinctly: if he had been born 20 years later, he says he might never have become an artist.
Ofili completed his bachelor’s degree at the Chelsea School of Art in 1991 followed by a master’s at the Royal College. Growing up in a terraced house in Manchester, northwest England, in a far from wealthy family, he received a bursary to help cover his expenses. Today, however, he would have been expected to take out a student loan for fees that have just risen to £9,000 a year. “How much does it cost now? £30,000? I couldn’t even say £30,000,” says Ofili.
Artists may be among the greatest individualists in any society but some contemporary practitioners, anxious about the future of the culture, are piloting projects that aim to educate and sustain their younger peers.
Chris Ofili, one of Britain’s top contemporary painters, puts the problem succinctly: if he had been born 20 years later, he says he might never have become an artist.
Ofili completed his bachelor’s degree at the Chelsea School of Art in 1991 followed by a master’s at the Royal College. Growing up in a terraced house in Manchester, northwest England, in a far from wealthy family, he received a bursary to help cover his expenses. Today, however, he would have been expected to take out a student loan for fees that have just risen to £9,000 a year. “How much does it cost now? £30,000? I couldn’t even say £30,000,” says Ofili.