Announcing our 2021/22 bOlder Artists

We are delighted to announce the ten artists selected for bOlder 2021/22, a talent development programme for Greater Manchester-based contemporary visual artists aged over 50. The artists were chosen through a competitive application process and selected with careful consideration as to who would gain significant creative and professional development by participating in the programme.

The ten selected artists are:

– Tim Dunbar (Trafford)
– Rachael Field (Manchester)
– Marguerite Heywood (Bury)
– Maggie Kajiyama (Manchester)
– Diane King (Manchester)
– Sume Leyden (Bolton)
– John Merrill (Manchester)
– Jo Parker (Bolton)
– John Pindar (Bolton)
– Mike Robinson (Salford)

bOlder 2021/22 is a talent development programme developed by Castlefield Gallery and funded by the European Social Fund Community Grants Scheme. It follows the successful bOlder 2019/20 programme, commissioned by GMCA as part of Great Place GM in 2019, and bOlder 2020/21, funded by the ESF Community Grants Scheme in 2020.

The bOlder programme will offer an intense period of creative and professional development support, tailored for the artists as individuals and as a group. Castlefield Gallery’s Artist Development Producer Jane Lawson will lead the programme which will include one-to-one coaching, professional development workshops, support towards their costs of up to £250, a materials bursary, and development sessions with Castlefield Gallery Director/Artistic Director Helen Wewiora and Castlefield Gallery Curator / Deputy Director Matthew Pendergast.

The previous cohorts of bOlder artists have continued to work together and exhibit widely, including a fourth group exhibition for the bOlder 2019/20 artists at World of Glass in St Helens in spring 2022; a group exhibition by bOlder 2020/21 artists at AIR Gallery in autumn 2022 and a solo show by bOlder 2020/21 artist Suzanne Bethell at HOME’s Granada Gallery due to open in spring 2022. 

To learn more about our bOlder programme, you can download the bOlder 2019-20 Case Study produced by Great Place GM HERE

You can also listen to the interview of bOlder 2019-20 artists Julia Griffin and Paddy O’Donnell on Vintage fm:

Image: Sume Leyden, Discordant Scape No 2 (2016).