10 emerging artists to keep an eye on

The last two years have been incredible for the artistic market! Art fairs from around the world, such as Arco Madrid,  Art Miami or Art Basel broke their visitors’ record plus their sales record, with artworks that reached values like those other times of glory. Christie’s‘ and Sotheby’s’ auctions have also impressed us, with artworks of the most acclaimed painters fighting for the status of “most expensive artwork ever commercialized at auctions”.

But all of this (deserved) enthusiasm with the most well-known artists and top galleries may have created some distraction regarding the authors that are still rising, but already produce artworks as “grownups”. Therefore, we have prepared a best of with 10 emerging artists that you will want to keep an eye on.

Sanya Kantarovsky

The Russian author does not like to hear his work discussed only in terms of abstraction or figurative. Instead, he relates it to the graphic, calligraphic and historic influences that guide his practice. Although he produces sculptures and video installations, Sanya Kantarovsky  has gained projection thanks to his paintings. Through minimalism with a touch of humor, these are the ways the artist expresses his own vision about socio-cultural themes.

Matthieu Clainchard

Matthieu Clainchard isn’t just a Parisian artist, he is also a curator. His work is about the urban daily life, about already existing things, with a clear preference by the provocative ready-made  style (of which Duchamp was the great enabler) and assemblage. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand that Clainchard likes to contradict the clichés and immediate conclusions. Very critical about the contexts on which art should and could exist, Matthieu Clainchard likes to alter things, objects, machines, situations, going against the logic of its limits. The French artist is openly provocative and totally capable of manipulating the perceptions of those that contemplate his work.

Maja Vukoje

Maja’s work is absolutely unique because it almost forces the spectator do “decipher” the various layers of his paintings. Regarding the materials, the Australian artist prefers to escape from the conventional by choosing to use domestic objects to paint, like combs, spatulas, mirrors or her own hair.  But this choice of less expected objects, and   its realization in different techniques on the canvas, is meant to match the author’s purpose to accentuate the several layers of her narrative. Maja Vukoje was present at Art Basel Miami Beach in 2013, and her large scale canvas where one of the most appreciated artworks of the fair.

Radka Salcmannova

This artist from Czech Republic has been leaving everyone open-mouthed with her photographs that look like surreal paintings, as the “Photography Paintings” proves. For Radka, every photograph is like a performance, since she likes to cause awkwardness and confusion on the spectator.  The fusion of her base formation in the areas of photography, architecture and design and sculpture, gives the artist the skills to transgress the categories that define, normally, artworks, and thus making the spectator not very sure of what he is seeing. The images that she creates end up being, obviously, fictitious, but representative of emotions and previous interior questions of Radka, which challenges others to also question themselves.

Zhao Zhao

Due to the repressive practices of the Chinese government regarding culture, it gets much more interesting to follow the works of less known artists, that end up playing an activist role on this situation. Zhao Zhao is familiar with this role, since he even had some of his works confiscated, he was fined by the Chinese government innumerous times, and he was in jail and beaten for no reason. Still, Zhao Zhao does not surrender and he still develops his work to modify the cultural memory while having to live consciously within it.

Fernando Corona

The path of this Mexican artist has been a bit curious: Corona grew up influenced by the culture of the streets and street style, but he ended up winning a scholarship to study arts, stablishing himself as a promising artist. It was when he lost his studio, in 2010, that the artist went back to his roots, painting murals in public and large scale buildings, in cities like Venice, New York, Berlin or Budapest. But Fenando Corona’s interventions are not like the usual graffiti: the artist invites unknown people to help him paint, being the guests connected, or not, to the field. Fernando Corona defines himself as a conceptual painter, whose work is developed in public spaces.

Dan Rees

Dan Rees is a multidisciplinary artist, whose work merges his competences as photographer, sound artist, performer and painter. Most of his artworks fit on an abstraction category, oriented to conceptual outlines. Still, his productions end up mixing his facets with art history characteristics and pop references which makes the final result complex, and difficult to “label” in a word that is not “fresh”.

Borna Sammak

Borna Sammak caught the attention at this year edition of Art Basel, since he managed to commercialize all of his works present at the fair. With frames that were designed by the artist himself, extensions and other technological components, the screens showed “layers” of video focusing on individual components such as squids, fungus and pieces of text.

Pap Souleye Fall

This artist born in Senegal, recently moved to the United States. The most unbelievable fact is that Fall only has 17 years old, and started to paint at the age of 14! Besides painting, the artist dedicates himself to sculpture and drawing of garments. On his work, Pap Souleye Fall, mix the influences of new technologies with what he sees on a daily basis on the streets. Fall’s ambition is to become a well-known international artist with his work that makes us, inevitably, think about Basquiat.

Beatrice Gibson

Beatrice Gibson is an artist and filmmaker based in London. On a mixture of image, performance and text, the artist explore through her work themes like sound, sociability, collective production and representation. Her film “A Necessary Music (2009)” won the Tiger Award on the category of Best Short Film on the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2009. Beatrice Gibsion has been enriching her works with a series of collaborations with curators, art critics, editors, designers, people that bring new perspectives to her projects.

These artists have already achieved, thanks to their talent, a good level of international recognition and visibility. We can only wait, expectantly, to see where time and artistic maturity will take their creations. But not only these artists will be spoken in the future. Here, much closer, you can find some of the names that will ensure the quality of the artistic creations made in Portugal.  At shair you have incredible emerging artists, whose work deserves to be widely spread.

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