What Is An MA?, ask curators Liz Murphy and Roddy Hunter in this week’s exhibition at the New School House Gallery, Peasholme Green, York.

In the spotlight is the practice of four fine art MA students at York St John University – present students Julie Bagwash and Charlotte Sykes and graduates Steve Humble and Stuart Murphy – who offer work in the context of the aforementioned question.

This is the first time that MA students from the university have had the opportunity to exhibit in a professional environment off campus.

“We’re delighted to collaborate with York St John University in this show,” enthuses Robert Teed, the gallery’s co-director. “It’s a great experience in terms of developing practice for students to exhibit in a professional gallery, and we hope this will be the start of an annual collaboration between the gallery and York St John.”

Work is on display today and tomorrow from 10am to 5pm, and the exhibition climaxes with a day of workshops, performance and debate tomorrow from noon to 4.30pm tomorrow.

“This show is definitely not a degree show per se,” says Roddy Hunter, head of fine art at York St John. “It’s more a show presenting current practice in the context of a spirit of inquiry into what constitutes an MA, and what it means for your practice when you undertake an MA.”

Charlotte Sykes’s work is concerned primarily with drawing as a gestural process through performance. “I explore the physicality of mark-making, for which the act/action is the work,” she says. “I’ve become more interested in the extension of line concerning the space around my bodily axis, exploring further the relationship between the self and the world.”

Julie Bagwash views her practice as “a therapeutic process through safe exploration of imagery that emerges in a dreamlike state”.

She is frank about the relationship between her art and her mental health: “My creative journey began after a mental breakdown,” says Julie, who is seeking to develop her work within and beyond the narrow boundaries defined by so-called outsider art.

“What is an MA for me? A time to grow up, and I don’t like it!” she says.

Steve Humble’s The Futility Of Drawing might be seen as a fragmentary thread of studio practice whose origins lie in research begun while Steve was studying towards his MA in 2008-9. “Through a mix of drawn, digitised and photocopied imagery, I question whether drawing, as both illusory representation and as process, is nothing more than a futile, if sometimes poignant, act,” he says.

Stuart Murphy’s mark-making is an attack upon the paper. “I grip whatever I’m drawing with until I feel pain, gritting my teeth. I attack the surface, almost destroying it,” he says. “It’s as if what I’m drawing with is a part of me, dictating what I do, guiding me into the unknown.”

Tomorrow’s programme of events from noon onwards starts with a series of creative workshops led by Julie Bagwash. These are followed by Charlotte Sykes’s performance at 1.30pm and an artist’s talk by Steve Humble at 3pm, concluding with a general discussion surrounding the question “What is an MA?”.

Admission is free and light refreshments will be served. No booking is required. See schoolhousegallery.co.uk for more details.