Supporting Graduate Artists in Partnership with JM Finn

Every year, thousands of art students leave university with a body of work and a set of ideas, but often no studio, no gallery representation, and no income. It’s during this phase between graduating and building a career that promising artists can lose momentum, and it’s rarely down to talent.

The annual Graduates Exhibition at Affordable Art Fair Battersea Autumn tries to help close that gap. Each edition, curator Jo McLaughlin – also art historian and podcaster – travels the country to seek out graduating artists worth watching, and invites them to show their work to the fair’s community of collectors and exhibiting galleries.

Visits to 14 degree shows across the UK

Jo’s process starts months before the fair itself, with visits to degree shows across the UK. This year she visited an impressive 14 shows. “I find it exciting to look at the next generation coming up,” she says. “The art world is opening up, slowly, and there are more people from diverse backgrounds, upbringings and identities feeding into it, which keeps the conversation fresh.”

Rather than looking for a particular medium or theme, she lets the work guide her. “If you pigeonhole what you think the stand’s going to be before you arrive, you’ll walk in looking for a photographer and a painter and end up ignoring the sculptor and the ceramicist. You have to give everyone a fair level of attention and let the work call you.”

What she looks for, broadly, is artists pushing the boundaries of their materials or their ideas. “You can have 10 people do a portrait, but everyone’s actually tackling something completely different, whether that’s the atmosphere they’re creating, the introspection, or the facade they’re presenting to the world.”

The criteria for taking part is straightforward: artists must have studied at a UK university, be graduating that year, and not yet have gallery representation. Beyond that, the door is open.

A boost when it matters most: JM Finn’s Artist Award

At the centre of the Graduates Exhibition sits the JM Finn Artist Award, a £5,000 bursary that goes to one artist each year to put towards their practice, whether that’s studio costs, materials, or simply the breathing room to keep making work. We’re enormously grateful to JM Finn, whose long-standing support as Lead Partner makes this award possible, and with it, the kind of head start that can genuinely change the trajectory of an artist’s career.

Jo, working with our Fair Director Hugo and JM Finn, chooses the winner after getting to know every artist on the stand individually. “We look for an artist whose work stands out for its use of material, subject matter, or simply because it’s breathtaking to look at, and who feels genuinely dedicated to their practice.”

Catching up with last year’s award winner, Hattie Quigley

Hattie Quigley is a painter and graduate from Edinburgh College of Art whose work explores the body, hunger, indulgence and desire.

Since winning the JM Finn award in 2025, her career has moved quickly. The £5,000 bursary gave her the freedom to work at a much larger scale, and that new body of work now forms the backbone of her upcoming solo show, opening 5 September at Refusés’ new North Acton space. Alongside this, her paintings have been shown in the Society of Women Artists 2026 exhibition and at Affordable Art Fair Hong Kong. This September she starts a master’s degree at the Royal College of Art, funded by the Ali H Alkazzi Full Scholarship.

“I’m sure having the JM Finn Bursary award on my CV helped – it’s an accolade to point to when applying,” says Hattie. “The bursary allowed me to buy materials to work on such a huge scale.” The exposure of the Graduates Exhibition itself mattered too: “We always used to complain that the London art schools get so much visibility – no one’s going to trek up to Scotland. But Jo McLaughlin did a whole UK sweep. Otherwise I don’t think we’d have been picked.”

Her advice to this year’s graduating cohort: “Be prepared to wear loads of different hats, whether that’s meeting fellow graduates and building community, or being as proactive as possible about meeting people at fairs or applying to things.”

Oliver Tregoning, Head of Marketing at JM Finn, commented on Hattie’s update: “It’s great to hear that the bursary has helped launch Hattie’s career as an artist and opened up new avenues for her to share her excellent work. We at JM Finn wish Hattie every success for her future.”

Looking ahead to our Battersea Autumn Fair

This autumn, the Graduates Exhibition returns to Affordable Art Fair Battersea Autumn from 14 – 18 October, with a line-up of 2026 graduate artists handpicked by Jo McLaughlin from 14 art schools around the UK. It’s a chance to discover the next generation of rising-star artists. Stay tuned for the full line-up.