Art gallery in Morningside to host all-graduate exhibition

THE Morningside Gallery in Edinburgh will open an exhibition exclusively featuring works from recent university graduates. 

This exhibition, the first of its kind at the award-winning gallery, will be populated by works from some of Scotland’s finest emerging artists from the country’s art colleges. 

The ten graduates feature were all selected by gallery director Eileadh Swan, who visited degree shows at Edinburgh College of Art, Glasgow School of Art and Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design. 

The artists selected are said to be a “standout group” and represent the best and brightest of Scotland’s 2025 art school graduates. 

The Morningside Gallery won an award for curatorial excellence for its display at the Affordable Art Fair in Battersea, London and is well-known as a hub for established artists and promising talent alike. 

Ella Williams, whose work was successfully displayed and sold as part of the Battersea exhibition, will return to the Morningside Gallery on Saturday, when the exhibition officially opens. 

Williams received the RSA John Kinross Scholarship, along with Tom Speedy, Anney White, and Harvey Stapleton, who are also featured in Morningside. 

Morningside Gallery director Eileadh Swan, described what stood out about the work of Edinburgh School of Art Graduates: “At
Edinburgh the work of Trevor Finlay, Ella Williams and Harvey Stapleton really spoke to us.

“Ella’s huge dreamy canvases drew us in with confident mark making and bold uses of space and Harvey’s small and intense oil paintings seemed to create another world through the manipulation of paint itself.

“Finlay’s honest and mature depictions of both the people and the landscapes of rural North West Highland farming and fishing communities reflect a maturity beyond his years and a willingness to engage challenging subject matter – portraiture for a start and Scottish rural life – a subject so familiar as to be at risk of becoming twee.

“Trevor won the National Portrait Gallery London — Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Portrait Award(Formally the BP Portrait Award) for his portraiture and we were blown away by both his painting skills and his hands on research for the painting.”

Other painters and visual artists featured at the Morningside Gallery include Harvey Stapleton, Mia Coutts, and Finlay Trevor. 

Eileadh added: “We’re really excited to launch our first graduate show in the gallery.

“It’s quite a different proposition from our usual exhibitions as there are no existing followers or collectors for these new graduates’ work, although we were thrilled to see a huge amount of interest in Ella Williams’ work when we exhibited it last October at an art fair in London.

“Working with artists at this early stage of their careers is not the same as working with established artists and we’re really pleased to offer them a platform to showcase their brilliant work.

“The window between the art college degree show and life as a practising artist is both exciting and formative and it has been a real privilege to be part of this process, as the artists develop their next steps.

“People have asked what we were looking for when we visited the degree show and I’d say it was both the same and different as when we are sourcing all artists.

“You are looking for stand-out work – artwork that successfully creates a world before you, and one that is convincing, compelling and engaging enough to hold your attention.

“This world building and the development of a visual language is a lifetime’s work, and at a degree show you don’t expect to see it fully formed, but if it is there you see it.

“We also found there were quite strong themes running through all of the degree shows and surprisingly similar work in some cases even across different locations.

“This made artists who had developed their own voice and ideas in a different direction really stand out.”

Aside from painting, metalsmiths and small-scale sculptors will also be exhibited from Saturday. 

Rosina Payan Pecorelli is a designer and maker who last year exhibited at the Milan and Munich jewellery weeks. 

The gallery described her work: “Rosina Payan Pecorelli is a designer and maker whose work is driven by a fascination with architectural form and repetition. 

“Inspired by structures found in the built environment, she is interested in how the same forms can move between wearable jewellery and static sculptural objects, blurring the lines between body adornment and object-making. 

“Working primarily in metal, Rosina’s practice is rooted in experimentation and making, with a clear dedication to expanding her technical skills and pushing material possibilities across jewellery and small-scale sculpture.” 

The exhibition will also include jewellery by Tina Avery and Emilia Santaella.

Kristel Bodensiek, who hails from Bogota, Colombia but is based in Edinburgh, will supply the exhibition’s sculpture. 

Her work is described as such: “[Kristel] works across sculpture and material exploration, where the act of making is as significant as the final form. 

“Her practice is shaped by repetition, rhythm, and attentiveness – processes that become meditative through hand-building and casting. 

“Kristel is drawn to materials that embody change: clay for its movement between liquid and solid, bronze for its cycle of liquefaction and solidification, and glass for its shifting balance of fragility and strength—transparency and opacity. 

“Through these transformations, she explores the subconscious and the potential for inner renewal, using ordinary materials to carry profound psychological and emotional charge.” 

The Morningside Gallery’s Graduate exhibition will open this Saturday and run until 22 February and is open to the public.

The gallery is open from 10am-5pm.

Paintings can be purchased in person or online.

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