Earlier this year we put together a list of established artists who could have the potential to experience growth this year. This time we're looking at less well-known artists who have caught our eye with regards their future, or current potential.
Hyangmok Baik
Hyangmok’s work continues in a tradition of bold, somewhat crude, almost post-aesthetic contemporary painting. His work combines a flattened perspective; a raw, heavily-worked surface; unpredictable colour-schemes; and irreverent subject matter – from disembodied heads to ducks to platters of fruit or bottles of champagne – the paintings seem somehow atemporal, acultural, ahistorical, and, paradoxically, universally relatable. Hailing from South Korea, Hyangmok is into surfing and weightlifting, but also keen on dream-analysis and the subtle unspoken intricacies of human interaction. Through recontextualization, the non-sequitur, deconstruction, and a fair amount of dark humour, Hyangmok’s paintings would seem just as relevant in California just as soon as they seem to articulate the kind of laissez-faire, post-punk lifestyle of a South Korean millennial.
The manner in which he speaks about his work would not seem out of place, in, say, a Haruki Murakami novel:
It seems cloudy and gray, like a dream, but it’s expressed very clearly. All the elements in my work are arranged through my imagination into a single story. In the very middle of it, A person: he or she or it, is myself or a portrait of a modern person at the same time. A character. Sometimes we can remember the characters in our dreams, but mostly, we can’t.
Through his usage of familiar, if uncanny referents, the work offers a fresh perspective to the conversation of painting. Through a diverse visual arsenal of motifs, symbols, and stylistic tendencies, the paintings are elevated to a new kind of complex, albeit reductive, semiotic language. The paintings seem to connect through a sort of visual connectivity apart from language – where the visual has been disassociated from meaning and reduced to a series of images, colours, shapes, and symbols that may (or may not) have a real-life reference and are left for the viewer to impart further meaning.
Willem Hoeffnagel
Willem Hoeffnagel is a painter from the Netherlands. Since an early age he has been interested in drawing and painting, and after leaving a bachelor in Entrepreneurship in Amsterdam he pursued his passion by enrolling in ArtEZ Zwolle to study illustration design.
During this period he started to develop a personal style, while keeping his horizons open by experimenting with new techniques and ideas.
While illustration did not appear to be his strong suit, being consumed with art day-in day-out for 4 years helped him grow as an artist in general. After leaving ArtEZ he started working on his paintings full-time: the medium he loved the most.
The first appearance of his iconic figures took place over a decade ago, and they have not left his canvases ever since. The figures take the place of individuals, either himself or other people, which allows Hoeffnagel to paint a scene without giving away too much of the individual at hand and unnecessarily taking away attention from the painting.
CB Hoyo
CB Hoyo was born in Havana, Cuba. At a young age, he immigrated to the Dominican Republic and now lives in Europe. His artistic process began as a child, when he started interpreting the world through his paintings. Over the past few years, his work has increased in stature. A self-trained artist, CB Hoyo continually produces works that celebrate life itself.
Fresh, colourful, and fun are three words that easily describe his creations. Working with any medium on any material, the artist uses a mixture of art historical trends but always incorporates his unique voice. CB Hoyo is making a proper mark on the current art scene. Some of his works are already exhibited in private and public collections in 6 continents.
Christina Allan
Christina Allan received her BFA in Painting from Parsons the New School for Design in 2017. Known for her highly expressive and vibrant paintings, Allan’s work expresses profound aspects of the human experience, including the classic existential struggle. From dramatic mythical scenes to introspective psychological portraits, her work populates a world of fantastical creatures within dream-like natural landscapes.
Similar to how ancient mythological deities served as answers to the mysteries of a meaningless world and universe, Allan’s paintings present an in-between space and state – an escape from an absurd quotidian existence.
She has exhibited internationally through solo and group exhibitions in London, Los Angeles, Madrid, New York City and Paris. Her work can be found in private collections throughout Asia, Canada, Europe and the United States.
Travis Fish
Travis Fish lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. Defining himself as a ‘sweater-obsessed’, Fish paints branded sweaters, sport hoodies and caricature portraits of celebrities. Whimsical and distorted, his large-scale acrylic paintings often evoke the fabric of garments, playing on the intersection between art and fashion.
Interested in the way this specific item of clothing functions in society and often appropriating paintings by other artists of his generation as signifiers, the sweaters and hoodies he chooses are not random. Travis Fish playfully but meaningfully monumentalises and transforms them into icons in their own right.