Welcome to the Threshold
A living cultural foundation for emerging artists and the future of patronage.
A Threshold Architecture
Built to hold those crossing from potential to expression - from marginal to magnetic.
Now ready to activate.
A Foundation for the Future of Creativity
It’s become clear that much of the most meaningful and time-consuming work we do at New Blood Art has always been non-profit in nature.
At the moment, the gallery effectively carries the weight of this non-profit work, which means neither arm - philanthropic nor commercial - can fully reach its potential.
For this reason we have established a charitable foundation - to formalise and develop what we’ve effectively been funding for years - to hold the emerging art prize, university outreach, exhibition spaces, educational programmes for artists and more in order to support artists to create a living from their work.
Creating autonomy for our philanthropic and commercial arms will allow both to truly thrive: the foundation to grow its cultural and educational mission, and the gallery to develop as a focused commercial gallery.
The charity’s core purpose will be to bridge the gap between creative practice and commercial sustainability - building practical routes for talented emerging artists to create sustainable careers. This also feels like an exciting opportunity to contribute to something broader: reviving the spirit of creative entrepreneurship and independent making in the UK.
The New Blood Art Foundation emerges from over two decades of work by New Blood Art - supporting, curating, and elevating emerging creative talent in the UK arts sector. The foundation will serve as a national platform for cultural transformation. Currently finalising its legal registration, the foundation is actively developing strategic partnerships to launch as a centre for cultivating sustainable, commercially viable creative careers.
With longstanding collaborative relationships across UK art schools, and through initiatives like the New Blood Art Emerging Art Prize, the foundation is uniquely positioned to bridge commercial and creative spheres - bringing artists and patrons into a shared cultural space.
We are in early-stage discussions with partners, while actively inviting expressions of interest from those aligned with the foundation’s vision and values. We are open to strategic alignment and discussion, including the co-creation of its geographic anchoring - open to civic and regional collaborators who maybe seeking cultural regeneration in their areas or for specific projects.
Vision & Purpose
The New Blood Art Foundation exists to empower the next generation of creative talent, expand public access to contemporary art, and dissolve the separation between creators and collectors, cultivating sustainable commercial structures for professional artistic development.
Proposed Activities & Programmes
• Emerging Artist Development: supporting artists at all stages where resonance meets readiness, beyond traditional academic hierarchies.
• Mentorship: delivered by established artists and industry professionals.
• Studio, Residential & Selling Spaces: live/work/showcase environments both online and in physical spaces - where work is made, lived, and sold.
• Public Engagement: workshops, art salons, and artist talks that foster cultural access.
• Commercial Integration: a live, artist-run 'Art Hall' - a curated, dynamic bazaar for emergent creative work, made and shared in real time. A living field of practice.
• Exciting potential for embedded retail, hospitality, and exhibition platforms.
This is a space where creators and collectors - makers and patrons could live side by side. Residency spaces could evolve over time to reflect the imprint of those artists who’ve passed through - with artworks, and their subtle interventions left as traces of their becoming. We are exploring many exciting creative ideas - including rotating studio/hotel spaces to act as a live manuscript of emergent talent.
The Need
The UK cultural sector lacks structured, accessible pathways for talented emerging artists. Existing Funding structures rarely bridge the divide between talent and opportunity. It is exceptionally hard for emerging artists to establish themselves and create financially viable careers in the UK.
While the country is known for its art education, it does not have a strong collector culture or the structure to incubate emerging artists.
Culturally, there is also less of a collecting culture in the UK. In places like Germany, the Netherlands, or Scandinavia, owning original art is considered part of a home’s fabric, as normal as investing in a sofa or a set of curtains. In the UK, people often buy art through social reassurance, guided by what they have seen on other people’s walls or what they have been told is fashionable. It is less about instinct or personal response and more about belonging. By its nature, the best emerging art is not yet known, and that unfamiliarity is part of its true value and also the very thing that makes it harder to sell.
The gap in the UK is currently filled by commercial high-street galleries producing limited-run prints and “originals” that can be sold hundreds of times. It is the fast food of art. It is the complete antithesis of truly original work, but it is a formula that works and directly impacts the creative culture of the UK.
Art schools do not usually train artists to become creative entrepreneurs, even though this is what they must become. Unless they are immediately taken on by a well-resourced gallery or agent, which straight out of college is rare, the likelihood of them establishing sustainable careers is low. Once the structure of the degree dissolves, artists are left without the holding frame of tutors, peers, or studio space. We need to create these structures: an ecosystem where mentors, community, studios, commercial channels, market education, and a means for exceptional emerging artists to focus on their practice for a period of time combine to help them create a body of work, find a working rhythm outside the structure of art school, consolidate and nurture their training, and build commercially sustainable careers.
The foundation will provide a structured bridge between graduation and professional practice, a kind of “sandwich course” for real-world transition. Through a defined programme of mentorship, talks, and peer networks led by established artists and industry professionals, it will offer emerging artists the grounding to understand the market, talk to serious buyers, present and price their work, and build sustainable networks and commercial sales channels. The aim is to create an ecosystem that supports artists as they establish themselves, whether autonomously or in partnership with galleries and agents.
The foundation will work to bring emerging practice into the public domain in accessible and engaging ways, creating opportunities for the public to encounter new work and connect with the processes shaping contemporary art. Alongside this, we will develop practical mechanisms, through schemes like Own Art and strategic retail placements, to make collecting and living with original art a more integrated part of everyday life.
As one well-known contemporary artist said when asked on social media recently for their advice to emerging artists: “Marry someone rich.” It was only half a joke. The likelihood of an artist establishing a career still depends more on their financial background than on their passion or talent.
Each lost artist is a loss to the fabric of UK culture itself. It reflects a closed system, a lack of opportunity, and an economy that fails to value creativity. Think of all the talent we have lost because of that. There is an economic cost, and a psychological cost, a cultural cost, and a human cost to this system failure. Even artists with proven talent and recognition struggle to sustain themselves here. A friend, an artist with significant talent and an exhibition history, recently said she was just looking for some extra work that would not break her heart. That is the reality: a culture without the structures to hold its artists.
While the gap for postgraduate artists is acute, our ultimate vision extends beyond academic backgrounds. It is to help all those with creative readiness and innate talent to meet a true field of opportunity.
