Gray’s School of Art set to open doors for Master's Degree Show 2025

A regular highlight of Aberdeen’s cultural calendar, it will showcase the talent of the MA students across a range of creative disciplines including sculptural installation, photography, painting, performance, ceramics, graphic design, fashion illustration and fashion design.

Some of the students explore common themes addressing personal, cultural or political histories, whilst others work has sought to incite conversations that evoke more ethical or ecological practices that ask us all to tread a little more lightly.

Among the exhibiting artists are Rowan Flint, Rachel Fowler, Miriam Foy, Chimdindu Ikoro, Paul Irvine, Alex Kane, Andrew Kinnear, Kirsty MacDonald, Kerry Marr, Molly Mavor, Joanna Middelthon, Godspower Okoro, Marcelle Touw Riemersma, Max Ross, and MJ Scott.

The degree show coincides with an exhibition to showcase graduate fine artists and designers from Gray’s Graduate in Residence 2024– 2025 programme. This programme offers a unique opportunity for recent graduates at Gray’s to spend a year supporting the art school’s Fine Art & Design curriculum, whilst developing their practice.

It comes as Gray’s School of Art nears its 140th anniversary celebrations with a special exhibition and programme of events taking place to mark the significant milestone.

Dean for Gray’s School of Art, Dan Allen, said: “This is an exciting opportunity for our MA cohort to celebrate their fantastic achievements with both their friends and family but also to showcase their talent to industry experts as they embark on professional careers.  We are delighted to be able to welcome members of the public to the university so they can experience for themselves the creative journeys our graduating students have encountered during their time at Gray’s School of Art.

"Gray’s offers an inclusive and supportive environment that fosters critically and socially engaged, enterprising creatives. Many of our students have progressed from our undergraduate programme here at Gray’s School of Art or have returned to study after working in industry to develop their practice as part of Gray’s specialist and interdisciplinary master’s curriculum.

"As we prepare to celebrate 140 years of Gray’s School of Art, the Master’s Art & Design degree show highlights how the school is still shining brightly as a creative powerhouse in Scotland.”

Godspower Okoro, whose body of work is entitled Rituals for the Unspoken, said his time at Gray’s School of Art had been “truly transformative” as he embraced Scottish mythology with his own Nigerian traditions.

He said: "One of the most unique aspects of my time at Gray’s was how I was able to merge my Nigerian tradition with Scottish folklore to create a deeply personal and culturally layered body of work. A particularly powerful moment was during a field trip to the Scottish Sculpture Workshop, where I performed an Iyi-Ụwa ritual, a traditional Igbo practice, at the mountaintop as part of my research into healing, grief, and memory. This experience became a turning point in my practice, connecting ancestral knowledge with contemporary visual storytelling."

The exhibition is free to visit and opens to the public from Monday 1 September Wednesday 10 September. Visitors will be able to visit Gray’s dedicated studios and exhibition space to explore the multitude of talent on show.

Main image: David Blyth (left) Postgraduate Co-ordinator at Gray's School of Art with the 2025 cohort. Credit: Nicole Paterson