Returning this November with its biggest edition yet, Manchester Art Fair takes over Manchester Central once again with another eclectic, ambitious and ‘quintessentially northern’ showcase for collectors, galleries and art lovers from across the UK.
Now firmly established as one of the North’s leading art fairs, the welcoming weekender transforms one of the city’s most storied heritage buildings into a bustling hub of creativity with more than 170 stands and a boundless array of artistic voices spanning painting, print, sculpture, mixed media and photography.
Here are six stand-out artists exhibiting at this year’s fair.
Browse the full list of artists on display at Manchester Art Fair HERE.
Ghanaian artist Kwesi Koo Nyarkoh unpacks history and heritage through expressive, storied portraiture, channeling centuries of ritual and identity through his singular impressionist technique.
Working in acrylics, Koo layers colour to create large-scale works that forge a vibrant, dynamic bridge between subject and viewer – his favoured palette of ochre, charcoal and crimson reflects pulsating with emotive force and ancestral memory.
Beyond his studio, Koo is an educator and author, committed to supporting the next generation of African artists.
“I paint what I know, what I see, and what I feel,” Koo reflects. “Each face holds a spirit, a message. The face paint is not costume; it’s identity. It is how we tell our stories, how we celebrate, how we remember.”
Minted in the thrillingly anarchic world of 1980s Fleet Street paparazzi, renowned photographer David Koppel rapidly established a reputation as ‘the artist with a camera’, immortalising figures like Frank Sinatra, David Bowie, Marlon Brando and The Royal Family in newspapers and magazines, before turning his experience inward to produce autobiographical collages from remastered celebrity shots alongside black-and-white images of ordinary people and decades of memorabilia.
Koppel’s mixed-media works reimagine classic press photography as compelling, reflective narratives that blur the boundary between reportage and fine art. Having exhibited internationally and directed the acclaimed St Giles Street Gallery in Norwich, he continues to explore themes of fame and and image-making from a life behind the camera.
Drawing on an expansive range of sources spanning cinematic stills and 1970s science fiction, Manchester-born Isaac Jordan constructs vivid imagined worlds through taut, minimal installations across focused series, producing works that become animated in the mind of the viewer.
A graduate of the inaugural Apollo Painting School and recipient of the Haworth Trust New Graduate Award at Paradise Works, Jordan’s work combines structure and suggestion, blending formal precision with narrative depth. His pieces have been exhibited nationally, including at the BEEP Painting Prize in Swansea, and are held in public and private collections.
At this year’s fair, Jordan’s work will be on display with The Manchester Contemporary, a pioneering art fair that showcases the strength of the UK’s regional artists and galleries, exhibiting a dynamic mix of creative trailblazers who are shaping the future of contemporary art.
Also exhibiting with The Manchester Contemporary, esteemed Latvian printmaker Paulis Liepa offers a bold, distinct visual language that invokes modernist design forms and 20th-century industrial aesthetics.
Working with collagraphy, cardboard cut and silkscreen, he transforms the conventions of blueprints, signage and technical drawings into elegant works that explore philosophical questions and contemporary events, ranging from military conflicts to everyday objects and themes like streets, news, and advertising.
Since graduating from the Art Academy of Latvia in 2003, Liepa has presented 17 solo shows and taken part in more than 60 group exhibitions worldwide, earning multiple awards for printmaking.
Winner of the 2019 Contemporary British Painting prize, Sheffield-based Joanna Whittle creates intricate paintings that explore the relationship between landscape, history and human presence through intimate profoundly atmospheric depictions of manmade structures within a hallucinatory natural scene.
A lead artist for the Contemporary Art Academy and a founding member of the Heavy Water Collective, Whittle has exhibited widely across the UK at venues including the Saatchi Gallery, the Museum of London and Leeds Art Gallery.
Fri 21 Nov - Sun 23 Nov, Manchester Central, Windmill St, Manchester M2 3GX, From £12
www.manchesterartfair.co.uk
- Words:
- Wolf McFarlane
- Published on:
- Wed 12 Nov 2025
A graduate in MA in Design for Textiles Futures at Central Saint Martins, Zoe Anker spent several years in the fashion industry before returning full-time to printmaking. Her practice centres on silkscreen printing, combining colour, geometry and layered composition to create captivatingly unique pieces.
Each piece forms part of a “capsule collection,” reflecting her fashion pedigree, while her process-led approach allows for continuous experimentation and studied spontaneity. Taking influence from music, travel and brutalist architecture, Anker’s work embodies playful artistry with bold colours and liberated rhythm.
“The process always influences the outcome of my work- I would say I am very impulsive, free and playful. I use mainly paper stencils within my artwork, I love the freedom working this way and having the ability to evolve shapes and layers at a rapid pace.”