Kirsty McCrindle graduated with a BA (hons) in embroidery from Manchester School of Art in 1999.  She is a mixed media and abstract painter whose work explores the textures patinas and quiet moments of everyday life. 

 Her paintings often feature recurring lines, symbols and weathered materials and textures alongside vivid burst of colour.  These combinations serve as a visual language – one that hints at something familiar but never settles into a single interpretation. Using collage, texture and a process of layering and revealing, she treats painting as both a therapeutic act and a sometimes frustrating conversation.  The resulting work feels lived in and surprising, inviting viewers to lean in and look a little closer. 

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.

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.

Nancy is a Manchester-based painter and artist-curator and undertaken further studies with Turps Banana, 2020-22 and undertaken a year with alternative art school, the Islingon Mill Art Academy in 2019.

 Whilst living in Australia from 2016-17 Nancy became immersed in contemporary Australian painting, citing Nongirrna Marawili, Tony Tuckson, Brett Whiteley, Aida Tomescu and John Olsen as significant influences in her own work which examines the human connection to place and landscape. 

Nancy exhibits regularly across and the UK and internationally. She was a recipient of the Castlefield Gallery Award in the Manchester Open, finalist in the Beep Painting Prize in 2022, shortlisted for the John Moores Painting Prize, 2025 and was selected for the Bankley Open this year. She has exhibited with Helm Contemporary, New York, Comme Ca Gallery, Birley Studios, with the Pearls Collective in 2024 and at the Manchester Contemporary in 2025, Terrace Gallery, The Canal Boat Contemporary, Bloc Projects and Hedge Gallery. She is a regular exhibitor with the collective A Small Space and Prosiac and is a member of the Pearls Collective.

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