Image: Left to right: Izzy Cheyne Jones, Melissa Nesbitt, Laura Gooch and Marcus Hills, works of 2026 (details) © The Artists. Photos of the first two: Jules Lister
The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery at the University of Leeds has announced the four finalists for ‘FUAM 2026: The Friends of University Art and Music Graduate Art Prize’, the annual exhibition highlighting graduating students from the University of Leeds. Now in its 14th year, the prize show features work by Izzy Cheyne Jones, Melissa Nesbitt, Laura Gooch and Marcus Hills, with the exhibition scheduled to run from 16 September to 19 December 2026.
The gallery says the exhibition showcases the artistic talent of students completing BA studies in Art and Design and Fine Art at the university in 2026. A preview event runs on Tuesday 15 September from 17:30 to 19:30, with the exhibition opening to the public the following day, Wednesday 16 September, and closing on Saturday 19 December. Visitors will be able to vote for a People’s Choice Award either online or at the gallery.
According to the gallery’s exhibition listing, the four selected artists were chosen from their final degree shows by an expert panel of judges. This year’s judges are Claire Knowles, Acting Director of Library Services at the University of Leeds; Damon Jackson Waldock, director of The Art House, Wakefield; and Khadijah Ibrahiim, poet, playwright and artistic director of Leeds Young Authors. The judges will return to select the overall winner of the FUAM Graduate Art Prize 2026.
The exhibition description presents the finalists as a group working across a range of approaches and materials. The listed practices span sculpture, textiles, sound, installation and biomaterials. The gallery’s summary notes that Izzy Cheyne Jones’s work explores how art can shape psychological and emotional relationships with the built environment, while Melissa Nesbitt’s practice considers nature, memory and family history.
Laura Gooch’s work is described as addressing interspecies entanglement and the possibility of human-fungal integration, while Marcus Hills’s projects take a humorous approach to the absurdity of human treatment of the natural world. The gallery says all four artists demonstrate technical excellence and artistic innovation.
The FUAM Graduate Art Prize is supported by Friends of University Art and Music. The exhibition is free to visit, and the gallery’s event listing places the opening event at The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery on 15 September from 17:30 to 19:30. The exhibition then runs at the gallery from 16 September to 19 December 2026.
