BA Hons Fine Art student Fiery Machirst is the joint winner of the Middlesbrough Art Weekender New Graduate Award 2023 along side graduate Amiee Sulley.  MAW is a visual arts festival that occurs across Middlesbrough in galleries, institutions, project spaces, museums and public and meanwhile spaces. The festival is open to all artistic mediums and can take the form of, but not limited to, exhibitions, installations, performance, talks, workshops, participatory projects and everything in-between. The New Graduate Award is a post-education professional development opportunity that includes practice space and mentoring. It is open to graduates from the Northern School of Art, MIMA School of Art & Design and Northumbria University with two graduates selected from each educational institution.

We caught up with Fiery read on to find out more:

Why did you choose to study Fine Art at The Northern School of Art? 

Reasons for choosing to study at Northern School of Art was taking a gap year(s) from a previous course I studied in Durham, worked for two years. From working and experiencing lockdown, I really missed learning and creating art. From this I decided to go back into education, studying Fine Art. I wanted another chance to find what motivates me, understand my practice, learn and develop new skills from the facilities and mentoring offered and focus on a more relevant career.

What’s your favourite memory of your time at the School (academically as well as socially!)

Favourite memory of Northern School of Art. There’s so many to choose from but for me personally, it was the realisation of what I had created. What I am capable of, when standing back and looking at the work I was able to create in studio time. It’s been such an exciting journey, not just an exploration of techniques and skills, but an exploration of myself.

Any future plans?

Plans for the future, I am hoping to continue studies at Northern School of Art on their master’s course and push boundaries with my work even more, refining it to a more professional level. Alongside that I hope to network and collaborate outside of university to establish an artist’s community, which I hope through creative workshops, we can inspire the public to merge creativity with outdoors activities, providing a healthier lifestyle, and encouragement that anybody can do art and making that accessible to everybody.

Any advice for future students looking to study Fine Art?

Advice for students in the future joining Fine art, The only thing I can say is learning is fun so test your boundaries,. This is a chance to safely step out of your comfort zone and embrace the artist inside you. Don’t be afraid of getting messy, releasing energy, getting things ‘wrong’ or things breaking. Have fun whilst you’re creating, the tutors are more than encouraging, enthusiastic and very accepting of individual practices. The formality of the studio is really a glamourised playtime, experiment within it and have fun with it.

If you are interested in studying Fine Art at degree level look no further! We offer a fantastic and well established programme of study, find out more and apply now!