Meet the winners of Manchester Open 2026

The winning artists...

Manchester Open 2026 opened its doors back in June.

Fully managed and curated by HOME, this exhibition is a proud celebration of creative talent within Greater Manchester. The exhibition amplifies voices and stories from people from all boroughs of the city.

And now, five participants have been given award status for their artworks. Each award winner was assigned £2k, and the opportunity to work with HOME and Castlefield Gallery on a bespoke programme of career and practice development.

Discover the winners, their artwork, and their stories below:

Winners of the Castlefield Gallery Artist Development Award...

RIO DARWIN

Rio Darwin’s work pushes the boundaries of clay as a sculptural medium. Rooted in the shifting landscapes of the Holderness Coast her work speculates what it means to exist in an evolving landscape sculpting works that honour a tension between resilience and vulnerability.

She received a BA in Fine Art from Manchester School of Art and has since been selected to exhibit at Manchester Contemporary, Ones to Watch: Sunny Bank Mills and Great Northern Graduates: Waterside Arts.

You can see Rio's winning artwork below, or head to Manchester Open before Sun 6 Sep to see it it person, along with hundreds of other artworks.

FLORIAN HOULKER

Florian Houlker is a multidisciplinary artist creating sculptural installations that invite reflection, interaction, and presence.

Through ceramics, printmaking, casting, and reclaimed materials, he explores identity, memory, nostalgia, and trauma. By transforming reclaimed objects, he develops tactile, material-driven works that give form to fragmented stories and shared human experience.

You can see Florian's winning artwork below, or head to Manchester Open before Sun 6 Sep to see it it person, along with hundreds of other artworks:

CHIDIMMA URUNWA IKEGWUONU

Chidimma Urunwa Ikegwuonu is a contemporary visual artist whose practice explores culture, identity, women history, feminism and social experience.

Working primarily in oil on bamboo woven surfaces and canvas. With BA in painting and MA she has participated in exhibitions, residencies, and artistic exchanges across UK, Nigeria, and Mexico.

You can see Chidimma's winning artwork below, or head to Manchester Open before Sun 6 Sep to see it it person, along with hundreds of other artworks:

Zoom in

Rio's artwork

'Bone for Chalk' (2025) draws upon a phenomenological approach to the land to inspire its intuitive, biomorphic silhouette. This grounded form alludes to something evergrowing; something that exists in a continual state of becoming. During the making process, clay emerged as both a physical and conceptual medium, mirroring the unstable and impressionable qualities of coastal terrain; each contour, ridge and crack, a preservation of touch. 'Bone for Chalk' imagines ways in which coastal habitation may respond to changing environmental conditions and mutate into a resilient version of itself.

Zoom in

Florian's artwork

'Skin-Full' Growing up in the post-industrial towns of East Lancashire, among repetitive streets and back alleys that slope into the town centres. These alleys were once places to gather, drink cider, get a ‘skin-full’ and make mischief. Years of disinvestment have since hollowed out these working-class communities; high streets now resemble back alleys, lined with charity shops, betting shops, and discarded belongings—remnants of a once-proud market town eroded by political neglect. The Hide, bought from a charity shop, carries two screen prints: a bricked-up bin-hole and a cobbled alley descending toward it, merged in one print to suggest the decent it to the bin-hole. The sealed bin-hole suggests a halt to endless consumption, while the descending street mirrors the decline of the high street. Together they evoke a circular economy of unwanted goods—objects suspended in limbo, like an abandoned sofa—waiting to be rescued or taken to the tip.

Zoom in

Chidimma's artwork

My Mother’s Cross is a deeply personal work reflecting the unseen weight carried by a mother raising her children alone. The title is metaphorical, speaking to sacrifice, endurance, and the quiet strength demanded by circumstance. It addresses the contradiction within society where a mother is both expected to be everything and yet judged for being the one who stays. The piece considers cultural expectations, social pressure, and the emotional cost of devotion: the dreams postponed, the self set aside, the identity reshaped around care. At its heart, the work honours resilience rather than struggle alone. It recognises the dignity, love, and persistence that exist beneath hardship. The young girl represents continuity a new generation formed not from absence, but from strength. She stands as a symbol of empowerment, belief, and possibility, carrying forward courage, imagination, and a fierce sense of becoming. This work is both tribute and reflection.

Winner of the HOME Granada Foundation Gallery Solo Exhibition Award

FLEUR YEARSLEY

Fleur Yearsley works across painting and installation. Her practice explores memory, gender and pop culture through everyday public and domestic spaces.

She received her MFA from the Slade (2017).

Her work is held in the Victoria & Albert Museum collection and was selected for the John Moores Painting Prize 2020.

You can learn more about her artwork below:

Fleur's artwork

It Was Fun While It Lasted A bouncy castle captured between inflation and collapse, is deliberately ambiguous. It sits between the start and end of play, acting as a metaphor for coming of age. Its phallic shape adds a visual pun that oscillates between excitement and disappointment, humour and vulnerability. Situated on grass against stark metal fencing, the castle’s soft, bright surface contrasts with its rigid surroundings. This juxtaposition suggests both protection and threat: the fence becomes a reminder of possible puncture or danger. Simultaneously, it evokes the idea of a fortress and how we construct boundaries to keep people “safe”, while exposing anxieties about what lies beyond them. 'It Was Fun While It Lasted' appears exuberant and playful, yet carries a subtle melancholy and a longing for a time when play felt limitless.

Winner of the Kate Vokes People’s Choice Award:

Thomas Christian Bradley

Thomas Christian Bradley was born in Oldham.

His earliest artistic concepts were born from a handful of bookies' biros and his Grandad's Daily Star. Many a weekend afternoon saw the sport stars and Page 3 girls of the hour line up for their biro surgery: new limbs, gouged-out eyes, etc. - full makeovers for the newly christened gargoyles.

With an interest in faces, people and their absurd movements, he drew anywhere and everywhere. This remains present in his work - drawings from film, photography, newspaper cuttings, still life and imagination.

Thomas' artwork

The Cockfight It began on my bedroom wall and then it took over. A crowd scene at a cockfight. I started penning the characters whilst on shift at the pub - faces from newspapers merged with those sat across the bar. These were cut out and stuck on the wall. More people were recruited and the intensity seemed to increase. More paranoid, more encaged, and more obsessive. Daft creatures attempting to escape whilst more were thrown in. It became non-stop. More faces on the wall, more biros added to the Bic cemetery. The plastic corpses were mounting. The figures were constantly re-allocated as I shifted the mob to and fro. The composition altered weekly with re-analysis. Many nights and mornings were spent silently examining the crowd whilst watching it move. Faces would hide and the remerge like old friends. This continued for over 5 years until the wall was complete.

Manchester Open nominees:

Castlefield Gallery Artist Development Award nominees:

Hannah Leighton-Boyce

Hannah Leighton-Boyce is an interdisciplinary artist working across sculpture, print, collage, writing and moving image. Her practice explores identity, transformation and embodied experience through material processes. Recent work considers how surfaces record pressure, absence and repair, using paper, print, found materials and fragile sculptural forms to hold memory and change.

Jenny Steele

Jenny Steele is a Scottish visual artist who has been based in Manchester for 15 years. Her practice uses heritage weaving techniques to create tactile, evocative and joyful sculptures, exploring celebration, grief and ritual. She has recently been commissioned by Milton Keynes Council, Whitaker Art Gallery, Lime Arts and Museum of Science and Industry to create publicly sites artworks.

Phil Wroe

Phil Wroe graduated in Fine Art in the 1970’s followed by a long career as a senior manager across various roles within local authority arts services, relegating my personal creativity to an occasional therapeutic hobby. Retirement now offers time to test the limits of whatever artistic talent I may have.

Evita Ziemele

Evita Ziemele is a Manchester-based artist working from Rogue Artists Studios. Her paintings explore the tension between desire and discomfort, vulnerability and defiance, drawing on mythology, gendered violence and the fetishisation of femininity. Graduating from Salford University in 2022, she has since widely exhibited around the UK.

HOME Granada Foundation Gallery Solo Exhibition Award nominees:

Zoja Kalinovskis

Zoja Kalinovskis is a visual artist whose practice sits at the intersection of art and activism. They believe art has the power to challenge the status quo and inspire positive social change. As a disabled, neurodivergent, queer, and non-binary artist, Their lived experiences shape their practice, which explores themes of identity, disability and social justice while amplifying voices that are often underrepresented.

Hannah Sullivan

Hannah Sullivan approaches her painting as an exercise in surrendering control. Pouring thinned paint onto canvas, using gravity to guide it, the outcome is left to chance until eventually the forms become something figurative. Sullivan has been based in Manchester since 2019.