In 2014 we launched the annual Graduate Scholarship Scheme, with our School of Arts and Media, 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: studio membership, mentoring, peer support, professional development sessions, and a cash award.
Over 30 graduates have completed the scheme, and 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 scheme.
In 2024 the scheme enters it’s tenth year, with studio partners Islington Mill, Paradise Works and Hotbed Press, alongside Redeye the Photography Network.
Our current Graduate Scholars:
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.”
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.“
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.”
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.”
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.”
Our previous years’ Graduate Scholars
Image courtesy of Sam Parker.
Adam Rawlinson
BA Fine Art (2023)
Paradise Works
Adam Rawlinson has established an abstract painting practice working primarily with oil on canvas. He uses abstraction as a vehicle to examine and explore the ineffable, and connect, emotionally with the audience. He is concerned with mark making and how the materiality of the paint and its application can communicate something of our place in the world focusing on both the individual and collective experience how we relate to our natural surroundings.
Recent exhibitions include: Manchester Open Exhibition, HOME Gallery (February-April, 2024). The Manchester Contemporary, Manchester Convention Central Convention Centre (November, 2023). OFFSET, First Etch Glasgow, The Alchemy Experiment (September-October, 2023). Abstract Art, Brick Lane Gallery, London (July, 2023).
Lucy Claire
BA Fine Art (2023)
Hot Bed Press
“My practice is inspired by museum collections, primarily my fascination with classical sculpture. I explore this through photography, printmaking, and engraving. As an artist, I am concerned with how natural elements can be used to produce an artificial image of perfection.
My personal experience informs my interest in the artificial image, specifically the pressure of expectation on appearance and behaviour. Therefore, my work can be linked to the investigation of self, authenticity, and perception. I communicate this affinity by using everyday materials. I use readymade objects such as bricks and handmade tiles to give my photographs a physical aspect linked to lived experience.
My work concerns staged perfection, idealised beauty, unattainable standards, and the associated tyranny of classical ideals. I challenge accepted ideals by subjecting my images to unpredictable processes and presenting the resulting portraits on readymade bricks and handmade tiles. Both bricks and tiles speak of uniformity, manufacture, and mass production. The distorted portraits are juxtaposed with the perfect surface to question the commodification of beauty. Modern-day internet algorithms, filters, and the widespread use of facial aesthetics threaten to turn humans into manufactured clones as we strive to reach the beauty goals set initially in classical antiquity. Perceived beauty standards have never been more tyrannical.”
Image courtesy of Sam Parker.
Image courtesy Maggie Stick.
Maggie Stick
BA Fine Art (2023)
Rogue Studios
“I am an artist with activist qualities – an “artivist” from the Polish diaspora. I strive to create a space where the boundaries between art and social justice become blurred. Here, I explore the different ways of working with performance, prints, book and zine making, banners, installation, protest, analogue photography, music and community work. I believe that art can be a powerful tool for creating positive change, and I am passionate about creating meaningful works that can make an impact. My work explores themes of identity, migration, displacement, alienation, and self-determination. I am highlighting issues of poverty, inequalities, and systems of oppression.”
Recent exhibitions and performances include: Rogue Women, Rogue Studios, Manchester (May, 2023). Labia Mania performance and exhibition at Islington Mill, Manchester (March, 2023). Hardcore Cracovianka performance at New Adelphi, Manchester (March, 2023).
Megan Brierley
BA Fine Art (2023)
Islington Mill
Megan Brierley is a multidisciplinary artist who uses ink, video, digital collage and projection mapping to explore the relationship between humans and their artificial other, the posthuman condition, and the commodification of women’s bodies. Megan adopts poses from 1970’s porn magazines to create monochromatic images of erotic and uncanny women, whilst also piecing together fragmented body parts within her digital work to explore the artificial and digitalised human. With artificial intelligence rapidly on the rise, reality becoming ever obscured, and society becoming more sexualised, Megan’s work aims to merge the real and the artificial, whilst also uncovering the links between technologised bodies and pornography.
Recent exhibitions include: Divine Feminine, Islington Mill, Salford (2023). S.I.R.E.N.S, Partisan Collective, Salford (2023). Islington Mill: 200 Years in the Making, Salford Museum & Art Gallery, Salford (2023). SiGHTiNGESTED, Geek Pictures, Tokyo (2023). TEES, Rogue Studios, Manchester (2023).
Image courtesy Megan Brierley.
Image courtesy of James Lawton Photography
Zan Atkinson
BA Fine Art (2023)
Rogue Studios
“I employ a range of practice which spans diverse media, is rooted in materiality, and centered in sculpture. My output is intentionally variable, responsive, and reactive. Often initiated by current affairs and drawn from media sensationalism, my work seeks to encourage debate and incite commentary on prevalent social issues by illuminating inequality and highlighting disparities in respect of wealth, class, and opportunity. My sculptural practice explores the dichotomies of disclosure and concealment, strength and fragility, and security and precarity through the over-arching themes of time, liminality, and vulnerability.”
All Previous Graduate Scholars
2022/23
2021/22
2020/21
- Aidan Doyle
- Alfie Lane
- Jacob Longcake
- Joe Fowler
- Laura Socas
- Suraj Adekola
- Henna Mahmood
- Jeffrey Knopf
- Katie Aird
- Sara Rawat
- Babs Smith
- Chelsea Mulcahy
- Jack Jameson
- Kate Oakes
- Mimi Waddington
- Rachel Mason
2019/20
2018/19
2017/18
- Amy Brown
- Bridget Coderc
- Heather Bell
- Ieva Sedova
- Mollie Balshaw
- Alena Ruth Donely
- Jesse Glazzard
- Joshua Turner
- Katie McGuire
- Ovie Ist Kings Iruru
- Sadé Mica
- Claudia Alonso
- Elliott Flanagan
- Fushsia Summerfield
- Jamal Jameel
- Lubna Ali
- Tara Collette
2016/17
2015/16
2014/15
- Ali Wilson
- Cecily Shrimpton
- Hannah Connor
- Joseph Burton
- Katie Shaw
- Laura Daniels
- Olivia Brittain
- Amy Stevenson
- David Taylor
- Hazel Clegg
- Joe Beedles
- Charma Force
- Lizzie King
- Meg Woods
- Rika Jones
- Willow Rolands
