Highlights of the Fine Art Degree Show York St John University

Friends of York Art Gallery present curated highlights of the Fine Art Degree Shows at York St John University. The Friends of York Art Gallery (FYAG) are delighted to stage an exhibition of four selected young artists from York St John University at Sliding Water Gallery. The exhibition will open on Weds 17 June 2026 and close on Saturday 20 June. Hours of opening are 11am to 4pm.

Dr Nathan Walker, Head of Fine Art, describes the 2026 degree show;

“Our annual Degree Show is made up is made up of many small parts, bits and pieces, stuff and things. The materials of contemporary artistic practice are everywhere and made more complex by the very processes of discovering what it means to make work at this point in the 21st Century. These fragments are scattered across times and so, from the moment students arrive to study with us all the way up to this moment, just before they leave, the Degree Show is forming slowly and with quiet determination.

As art tutors we have the privilege of witnessing this. We often see the first fleeting glimpses of something we know will be profound during the first year of study; we get to watch it develop. These students’ work is full of these moments, fully realised.”

The four artists at Sliding Water were chosen by Livia Turnbull, Curator of Contemporary Art at York Art Gallery. They are;

Bronte Bentley
Chloe Hazlehurst
Cole Pallett
and
Tom Hardwick.

Livia comments;

“All of these artists’ work has a quality of imagination I would be happy to see in the Gallery.”

An inaugural FYAG prize was awarded to Tom Hardwick whose intriguing practice snares mysterious objects within delicate woven lattices.