Naqsh Raj (b.1984) is an artist, educator and a mother. Until December 2023, Raj was teaching at the Art & Design department at Nottingham Trent International College, UK.

She has a Masters Degree in Visual Arts from the National College of Arts, Lahore. She served in Pakistan as an Art educator for ten years at Comsats University, Islamabad. Raj has won numerous awards for her painting, including the 2024 ‘Nigaah Award’, presented at Mohatta Palace, Karachi.

In 2023, she was shortlisted for the prestigious John Moores Painting Prize and received the main prize in ‘Open 23’ at Tarpey Gallery, UK. Her work is exhibited and collected internationally.

Kate Jacob is a painter and trained in textiles at Manchester Metropolitan University, she’s also completed the Turps Correspondence Course, and Fine Art Mentoring at Morley College, London.

In 2024 she had a solo show here at Mura Ma and showed with the gallery at the Manchester Contemporary Art Fair in 2023. She has been invited to show in group exhibitions across the UK, including the Terrace Gallery, Studio 1:1 and Fitzrovia Gallery, London. Her work’s been featured by The Guardian, The Yorkshire Post, and Radio Sheffield. Awards include Arts Council Research and Development funds and she’s long listed for the 2024 Beep Painting Prize.

Fiona Moate studied fine art at the Hull College of Higher Education in 1982 and completed her MA at Manchester Polytechnic in 1983.  She worked out of artist studios including MASA and Sigma and later at her home in Stockport.

Moate taught on a number of art foundation courses in the North West and was visiting artist at MMU, Salford University, Manchester University Architecture School, Staffordshire University & Hull College of Art. She an art & design lecturer at the Manchester Adult Education Service until her retirement in 2015.

 Moate exhibited widely in the North West and London throughout the 1980s and ‘90s.  She was represented by the Ainscough Gallery in Merseyside and had a number of of solo exhibitions with the gallery. The last exhibition of her work in 2018 was ‘Landmarks’ with with peers including Sarah Feinmann, Steven Heaton, the late Kate Davies, Paulette Bansal, David Armes.

Moate’s paintings can be found in private and public collections in the UK, USA, Ireland, Germany, including Rutherford Collection, Oldham Art Gallery, Manchester University and Lancashire County Council.

Read the beautiful text in memory of Fiona by her friend Chris Lethbridge in MagNorth.

Helen Thomas is a contemporary British painter based in Wakefield, England. She graduated from Falmouth School of Art (BA Fine Art) and completed a year of postgraduate study with Turps Art School.

Helen works with drawing and painting, on site and in the studio, to consider humanity’s relationships with plants.

Helen’s Arts Council England Funded project ‘Dandelions and Double Yellows’ culminated in a solo exhibition at Wakefield Cathedral as part of the Festival of The Earth in 2021.

Recent group exhibitions include Planting Ideas, St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery, Hampshire, 2024; Precious Little, Mura Ma, Stockport, 2023; Rogue Women 2, Manchester 2023, Babble, Ilkeston Contemporary, Derbyshire, 2023; Entwined: Plants in Contemporary Painting, Huddersfield Art Gallery, 2022 and 20-21 Visual Arts, Scunthorpe 2023; Conversations with Nature, The Art House, Wakefield, 2022 and Jerwood Drawing Prize 2016.

Veronica Cay is a highly respected Australian artist working in painting, drawing and sculpture and has work in National & International public and private collections, has had numerous solo exhibitions and been a selected finalist in many national juried art prizes and awards in Australia. Cay currently lives on Gubbi Gubbi land on the beautiful Sunshine Coast of Australia with her partner and two of their adult children. 

Cay is represented by two Australian galleries and Mura Ma is the first UK gallery to host her work.  Cay is featured in the Precious Little exhibition with a show of works on paper titled Paper Thin Skin.

Emma Richardson is a painter who graduated from Wimbledon School of Art, London with a BA Honours in Fine Art in 2004. She has exhibited in solo and group shows in London, Southampton, Hong Kong and Barcelona. She received DYCP funding from Arts Council England in 2021 and in 2022 completed three years on the Turps Correspondence Course.

Her paintings are held in private collections in Canada, America, Italy, Spain and the UK. Alongside painting Richardson is also a musician, and previously wrote and performed worldwide with Band of Skulls for over ten years. Her paintings appear on a selection of their album and single releases. She lives and works in London, UK.

Louise West is a Dublin based artist who graduated with a BA in Painting in 1996 from the National College of Art and Design in Dublin.

Having previously studied animation and completed courses in the Turps Banana mentorship programme, West has exhibited in both Ireland and the UK in site specific and group shows.

Significant shows include Crawford Art Gallery curated by Iwona Blazwick; Sited curated by Mark Garry; The Royal Acdemy Belfast, Draíocht Art Gallery curated by Caroline Mc Carthy; Kilkenny Castle Gallery; The Mermaid Arts Centre;  Artform Dunmore East and Fitzrovia Gallery London. 

She was selected as reserve artist on the 2014 Sky Arts Portrait Competition and has been shortlisted for the “Artform Artist of Merit award” in 2021. 

Commisions include, “Playthings” at Draíocht Gallery” and reviews in The Irish Times and The Cork Examiner, she was selected for interview as a part of  “Lesson from Still Life” open submission for the New York based “Artrepeneur” Art Journal “Sketch” in 2023.

Nan Collantine lives in Manchester and is a recent recipient of the Castlefield Gallery Award and finalist in the 2022 Beep Painting Prize.  After completing an art foundation in 1990, Nan worked in advertising and communications for 25 years. From 2020-22 Nan completed two years mentorship with the Turps Banana Correspondence Course 2020-22.  She is a former student of an alternative art school, the Islingon Mill Art Academy and has established several artist-led initiatives, including Dez Rez Projects and Mura Ma Art Space.

In September 2024 Nan exhibited with Comme Ça Gallery in a two-person show with Sophie Nixon following their residency Chasing the Light and Tracing the Tides of Ynys Môn.  In October she was invited to be part of The Pearls and the Oyster group show of northern female painters at Birley Studios in Preston and will be showing with Terrace Gallery in Huddersfield in December.

Nan works from her studio at Goyt Mill  in Marple, Greater Manchester.