Graduate Scholars
In 2014 we launched the annual Graduate Scholarship Programme, with industry partners Castlefield Gallery, and a range of local artist-led studios.
The programme offers graduates a bespoke 12 month period of support to continue their professional practice, including: coaching, mentoring, peer support, professional development sessions, a cash award, and studio membership where appropriate.
Over 50 graduates have completed the programme and have gone on to a range of creative careers. The Art Collection acquires an artwork, (or documentation of practice) from each graduate scholar, after their participation in the programme.
In 2026 the scheme enters it’s 13th year, with studio partners Islington Mill, Paradise Works and Hotbed Press.
Our Graduate Scholars: 2025-26
Henry Collier
BA FIMS (Fashion Image Making and Styling)
Islington Mill
Henry creates imagery that comments on male vulnerability, self-accountability, and issues of toxicity prevalent in contemporary society. As well as working across photography and fashion image making and styling, his outputs include zines, prints, sculpture and text. His work explores ideas of softness as strength, and aims to help young men and LGBTQIA+ communities to find senses of belonging and reciprocal community.
Image: Self portrait in bathroom mirror in a petrol station, 2025, by Henry James Collier.
Charlie Currid
BA Fine Art
Charlie is a multidisciplinary artist from Bolton, interested in hybridity and the experience of nature in the digital age. His practice is composed largely of painting, video, and installation based pieces. Within his work, there is rarely a fixed end point: the work is “in constant flux, much like a river, continually eroding and depositing. Paintings become videos, become textiles, become sculptures, to return to paintings…”
Image: Charlie Currid in the studio, courtesy the artist.
Andrea Lowe
MA Socially Engaged Arts Practice
New Art Spaces
Andrea is a socially engaged artist and educator based in the North West. Her practice focuses upon arts and health, using creativity as a means to communicate and explore issues for and with people. Her work spans fine art (including drawing, printmaking and sculpture) to socially engaged practices (including creative facilitation and participatory artworks). Overarching themes include health, wellbeing, female empowerment and agency, within a context of social inclusion and experiences of domestic violence.
Image: Andrea Lowe in the studio, courtesy Helen Constantinou.
Portia Wilkins
BA Fine Art
Paradise Works
Portia is a Welsh artist based in Salford, Manchester. Their practice is an extension of the artist’s experiences, folklore, the gothic and gamer culture. their work explores avatars and hybrids that live within a liminal world, with reference to Welsh myth and history.
Image: The Sheep Pilgrim, Portia Wilkins, courtesy the artist.
Anni Kay Wilkinson
BA Photography
Anni is a photographer specialising in social, event and documentary styles. Her practice focuses on capturing underground and minority subcultures in Greater Manchester, as well as documenting different inner city areas. Her long-term project Hulme Loonies documents the communities and characters of the area. Her work has featured in the British Culture Archive, The Face, The Guardian, and Manchester Mill.
Fire Pit, Anni Kay Wilkinson, courtesy the artist.
Our previous years’ Graduate Scholars
Photograph by Sean Maguire and Sierra Kavona.
Grecia Balassone
BA Fine Art (2024)
Paradise Works
“I am a multidisciplinary artist, experimenting with a range of ways to tell the stories surrounding a subject. Due to my lived experiences of immigration, neurodivergence, and developmental trauma, my work explores themes of identity, nostalgia, community and belonging.
My research approach is immersive. I like to understand the themes I work with from first-hand experience, or the closest to that I am possibly able to get. I find people to be a great source of information, and with stories worth telling. I am also interested in preservation (of history, memories, media, processes), which leads me to create my own archives.”
Image courtesy of the artist.
India Buxton
BA Fine Art (2024)
Wallace & Seymour Painting Scholarship
“My practice is interested in exploring the representation and depiction of ancient folklore and mythology in the 21st century. My work draws upon the theories of ancient Greek Philosopher Plato and the ancient stories of their time. The figurative paintings reappropriate old stories into a new visual language that a modern audience can find their own narratives within. These paintings display my chosen stories, which are then modernised into personification of moral fables.“
Image courtesy of the artist
Iqra Saied
BA Photography (2024)
Castlefield Gallery New Art Space (Warrington)
“Portrait photography is a powerful medium to explore ideas of culture, identity and engage in contemporary debates. ‘Unfamiliar’ starts from my own personal experience of dual heritage.
As a British Pakistani, I feel closer to my home in Manchester than I do to Pakistan and these feelings are often difficult to navigate. I have collaborated with Hafsah, Caitlin and Rohan who resonate with the project and understand the sense of guilt associated with not knowing enough about the other place. The photographs aim to communicate the difficulty in building a sense of belonging with a place you have no knowledge of. However, accepting who you are is the best journey of self-discovery. I hope people of dual heritage will find inspiration to embrace their identity and celebrate their heritage.”
Photograph by Gwen RIley Jones.
Jess Robinson
MA Visual Communication
Islington Mill
“My current work now draws upon an interest in ancient eastern philosophy and spirituality that provides a refreshing contrast to modern, western values. Using predominantly black and white photography, I am producing imagery which attempts to visualise hidden moments of balance and moments of presence within the live music scene, against the chaos of movement and sound. These images sit alongside my own immersion and connection to natural spaces as an anti-dote to the chaos, finding a common ground and relationship between the two settings. My hope is that through practicing a mindful and connected approach to my creative process, I can step out of conditioned patterns and follow a more intuitive path.”
Image courtesy of the artist.
Robin Standring
BA Fine Art (2024)
Hot Bed Press
“My practice revolves around exploring my own identity, primarily the experiences and interactions I have as a transgender individual, focusing on the aspect of being ‘stealth’ within society today. Being ‘stealth’ in the terms of being transgender, is to live as the gender you identify with but not being openly out as trans, something many trans individuals do in order to avoid discrimination.
Through the use of an avatar affectionately named Baghead which I have created in my own self-image, I insert him in a variety of environments and scenarios, often mundane, in which almost everyone experiences, regardless of their race, gender or class; such as waiting for the bus, falling asleep on the train or even standing outside during a fire alarm.”
All previous Graduate Scholars
2021/22
- Henna Mahmood
- Jeffrey Knopf
- Katie Aird
- Sara Rawat
2019/20
- Amy Brown
- Bridget Coderc
- Heather Bell
- Ieva Sedova
- Mollie Balshaw
2018/19
- Alena Ruth Donely
- Jesse Glazzard
- Joshua Turner
- Katie McGuire
- Ovie Ist Kings Iruru
- Sadé Mica
2017/18
2016/17
- Ali Wilson
- Cecily Shrimpton
- Hannah Connor
- Joseph Burton
- Katie Shaw
- Laura Daniels
- Olivia Brittain
2015/16
- Amy Stevenson
- David Taylor
- Hazel Clegg
- Joe Beedles
2014/15
- Lizzie King
- Meg Woods
- Rika Jones
- Willow Rowlands
Our previous Graduate Scholar Mentors
Artist Mentors
- Lubaina Himid
- Jade Montserrat
- Oona Grimes
- Mani Kambo
- Nicola Ellis
- Holly Hendry
- Anna FC Smith
- Nicky Hirst
- Nick Jordan
Curator Mentors
- Mariama Attach – Curator of Metal Culture, Liverpool
- Emma Dean – Curator of BALTIC
- Paulette Brien – Curator of The Grundy, Blackpool
Directors, Collectors, and other mentors
- John E. McGrath – Director of Factory International
- Ed Cross – Founder of Ed Cross Fine Art
