Goldsmiths' College has expelled a student found in her room secretly putting the finishing touches to a painting of a bowl of fruit.
But first-year student Clarissa Nolan-Nolan (19) from Coventry denies that her representation of a bowl of apples, bananas and pears is, in fact, a painting.
'It was intended as an installation, a mixed-media or a video - or something like that,' a tearful Ms Nolan-Nolan said. 'I just don't go in for that Vincent van Gogh shit.'
A Goldsmiths' spokesperson said:
'Goldsmiths has very strict rules forbidding students having still lifes in their rooms or within the college precincts.'
Ms Nolan's tutor, Michael de Joong, said that for some time he had suspected she had been 'indulging in paint and possibly paintbrushes'. He added:
'Clarissa has also been seen loitering around shops that sell fine art materials and was seen leaving a greengrocers. One has to ask why she came to Goldsmiths at all.
'If she was allowed to get away with this, we could have an outbreak of these still life things - flowers, plants, rocks, shells. Horses, even! Oh, dear, where would it all end?'
Last year the college expelled a student found hoarding in his bedroom a large number of Turneresque watercolours.
Damien Hirst said he was shocked that such a thing could happen at his old college. 'It's all so two-dimensional and terribly gouache,' he said. 'I fear for the future of art.'