Friends of York Art Gallery present curated highlights of the
Fine Art Degree Show,
York St John University
Wednesday 17th to Saturday 20th June 2026
Open 11am to 4 pm daily
The Friends of York Art Gallery (FoYAG) are delighted to stage an exhibition of four selected young artists from York St John University at Sliding Water Gallery.
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 time 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
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 FoYAG prize was awarded to Tom Hardwick whose intriguing practice snares mysterious objects within delicate woven lattices.
The Friends of York Art Gallery is the oldest such organisation in the country, with over 75 years of working with the Gallery to further its ambitions. This year FoYAG has given free Friends membership to all York St John Fine Art students, as well as those studying History of Art at the University of York, where our organisation also sponsors a significant MA Bursary.
