Our 8 Favorite Artworks Under $5,000 from Black Owned Galleries Now https://ift.tt/NA972T3

The Scholars, 2025
Emmanuel Chidube
Wunika Mukan Gallery

Nkalubo, 2025
Wasswa Donald Augustine
Circle Art Gallery

Black-owned galleries are vital cultural anchors. Artist-run project spaces offer platforms for some of today’s most exciting artists, while seasoned tastemakers ensure the legacies of their rostered talents. All bridge the gap between collectors and artists.

At Black-Owned Galleries Now, Artsy’s online showcase of Black gallerists and the artists they champion, you’ll find art that riffs on ancient motifs and conceives of futuristic narratives. Black artists across the globe are using painting, sculpture, photography, and mixed -media to find new modes of expression.

In celebration of Black History Month, Artsy’s content team has selected standout pieces—all priced under $5,000—that offer something personal. Whether you are looking to support Black-owned businesses this month or just beginning your collecting journey, this is the perfect place to start.

Bade Fuwa, You Never Really Learn, 2023

Presented by Forme Femine

You Never Really Learn, 2023
Bade Fuwa
Forme Femine

Amid the chaos of screens and digital devices, I’ve been searching for art that cultivates a sense of calm. I was immediately drawn to this black-and-white photograph by Bade Fuwa, on view as part of Forme Femine’s Black-Owned Galleries Now presentation.

The power of this image lies in the embrace. Here, two subjects mirror one another in their shared body language and dress. The absence of color amplifies the scene, while the hidden face of the second subject adds a layer of intrigue. There is something deeply soothing about this interaction against the gentle ripples of the waves. The figures could represent two parts of the same person—a tender ode to self-love.

Fuwa’s depiction of softness really resonates with me, especially as it relates to Black femininity. The photograph radiates a sense of safety that would transform any home.

—Adeola Gay, senior curatorial manager, London

Patrick Alston, Studio Notes #13, 2025

Presented by Jenkins Johnson Gallery

Studio Notes #13, 2025
Patrick Alston
Jenkins Johnson Gallery

It’s not every day that you find the perfect piece for a small apartment, which is why I was so excited to discover this work on paper by rising artist Patrick Alston.

On the surface, Alston’s colorful abstractions are playful and energetic. Explosions of color and dizzying, gestural brushstrokes define his compositions. The artist takes inspiration from the South Bronx in New York City, where he grew up, offering thoughtful explorations of identity and belonging.

While Alston typically works with found fabrics, including terry cloth and painter’s rags, he channels the same energy into this smaller-scale work; he applies thick layers of bright paint to create a vibrant, textured “studio note.” This artwork is a rare find, and it’s at the top of my wish list this Black History Month.

—Adeola Gay, senior curatorial manager, London

Juwon Aderemi, Idea 03, 2025

Presented by Ross-Sutton Gallery

Idea 03, 2025
Juwon Aderemi
Ross-Sutton Gallery

This showcase is filled with exciting portraits, and Juwon Aderemi’s Idea 03 (2025) is my favorite. The young Nigerian artist often paints surrealistic portraits that draw on Yoruba culture and West African folklore—and you can see his flair for storytelling here. His single figure encourages you to dream up the world around him, just outside the frame.

The work manages to feel subtle, guarded, and electric at the same time. I can’t help but lock eyes with the subject. Aderemi pairs that piercing stare with lush, carefully rendered details: soft brushstrokes, velvety textures, and that crisp contrast between the warm terra-cotta background and the deep blue patterned shirt. I especially love the perfect bucket hat, trimmed in the same blue fabric—a small detail that makes the whole scene feel even more intentional. Given Aderemi’s ties to Yoruba traditions, the blue pattern reads not just as a style choice, but as a possible nod to adire, traditional indigo-dyed cloth.

I always end up back at the gaze—calm, contemplative, with a hint of concern. It’s a painting I could get lost in every day.

—Casey Lesser, senior director of content, New York

Wasswa Donald Augustine, Atwooki, 2025

Presented by Circle Art Gallery

Atwooki, 2025
Wasswa Donald Augustine
Circle Art Gallery

I’m thinking a lot about the future these days: trying to imagine that, despite everything going on in the world right now, something good and unexpected is around the corner. This work by Donald Wasswa Augustine offers that sense of joyful anticipation.

The wooden sculpture is one of a series of small, biomorphic works that each have their own human name (Atwooki is a Ugandan “praise name” given to tough but kind leaders). The sculpture appears to have a body, made of beautifully grained Albizia wood, balanced on spindly ebony legs. Expressionless but undeniably cute, the miniature critter is strange and individual. Wasswa Augustine, who has exhibited at galleries across Africa, is explicitly interested in the future of our species and how technology might impact the way we survive. According to the gallery, these sculptures show the artist “taking the process of evolution into his own hands.” It’s this imagination that gives me hope.

—Josie Thaddeus-Johns, lead editor, Berlin

DAMOLA ADEPOJU, Log Drivers at Dawn, 2025

Presented by Art Lab Gallery AE

Log Drivers at Dawn, 2025
DAMOLA ADEPOJU
Art Lab Gallery AE

I love this pint-sized mixed-media piece by Nigerian artist DAMOLA ADEPOJU; it feels quiet and strangely serene despite the dangerous profession it depicts. Log driving is hard. It involves floating on logs in fast-moving water, often for up to 16 hours at a time (check out the classic Canadian folk song “The Log Driver’s Waltz” for a flavor).

Here, at the crack of dawn, the warm, golden water and a small group of laborers appear calm. It’s the sort of artwork I’d like to wake up to: a peaceful reminder to start the day with a steady, everyday kind of courage.

—Arun Kakar, senior art market editor, London

Emmanuel Chidube, Senior Girls (The Three Graces), 2025

Presented by Wunika Mukan Gallery

Senior Girls (The Three Graces), 2025
Emmanuel Chidube
Wunika Mukan Gallery

The glowing pink auras, jaunty poses, and preppy socks drew me to The Three Graces (2025). Emmanuel Chidube’s painting captures the contours of girlhood in a few brushstrokes. The three students stare down the viewers, and we look back, aware that they know everything and nothing at the same time.

The title invokes Greek mythology—the three graces (or charities) are sisters, daughters of Zeus, who represent splendor, mirth, and good cheer. In this casting, Chidube elevates Black joy and girlhood to legendary status. At a time when Blackness and Black bodies are constantly scrutinized and threatened, anointing this trio as symbols of happiness and celebration brings a bit of light into our present moment.

—Sydney Gelman, Copywriter, New York

Browse more artworks from Black-Owned Galleries Now in our collections featuring our curators’ favorites and works under $1,000.

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5 Outstanding Artists at the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale 2026 https://ift.tt/1mKsVuh

Cars, camels, and a procession of jubilant, drum-beating young men opened the first official night of the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale 2026. The performance, entitled Folding the Tents and conceived by multidisciplinary creative Mohammed Al Hamdan, began with SUVs crawling along the desert highway leading to the biennale. Performers then congregated into a festive conga line, joined by members of the thronging crowds. As the night went on, the performance turned into a full-on dance celebration as Palestinian rapper Shabjdeed took the mic to a crowd hollering his lyrics back to him.

The opening event on January 30th was one of several “processions” that will take place during the Saudi art event. It summed up the biennale's theme as well as the unmistakable energy on the ground. Notions of movement, the co-curators Nora Razian and Sabih Ahmed explained at the opening, are central to this Biennale, which is titled “In Interludes and Transitions.” The phrase in Arabic expresses solidarity and constancy, no matter what change might come.

“The biennale we present to you today is conceived as a passage through which several processions are shaping the world today,” said Razian at the event’s press conference. “We wanted to convey a world in flux, a world of movement and a world of transition.” The show hoped to develop this starting point in several different thematic rooms: one focused on music, another on dance, for instance. Not all of these ideas had room to breathe in this wide-ranging show, but the constancy of change shone through many of the works on view: how tectonic, boundary-pushing shifts define our contemporary experience.

The international art world’s interest in the Middle East is at an all-time high, thanks to Art Basel Qatar’s debut earlier this month. So there were extra eyes on the Saudi art event this year, which began in 2021 and is now in its third edition. Major new artist commissions were a highlight of the biennale, which brought together an impressive roster of artists based in the region, as well as Asia, Africa, and beyond.

Here are the standout artists to know from the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale 2026.

Théo Mercier

B. 1984, Paris. Lives and works in Paris and Marseille, France.

Saudi Arabia’s desert sand is a dark yellow, almost chestnut color, and it’s this material that French artist Théo Mercier makes full use of in his huge sculptural installation House of Eternity (2026). The artist meticulously shaped three enormous piles of the stuff into a range of surreal objects that put traditional sand castles to shame. Metal grated ramps surround his giant mounds, giving the viewer a kind of tourist experience, a perspective from every angle.

Atop one sand pile is a perfect life-size replica of a car; a disembodied ear stares out of another. Around all three are meticulously carved fossils and shells. Mercier, who also works in theater and dance, sees his work as a kind of archeology of the present. These massive sculptures, which look like they’re excavating these items from the sand, sum up our contemporary, wasteful lives with these temporary ruins that will be dismantled after the event. Taking into account the windswept deserts and the nearby mudbrick towers of Diriyah, Mercier’s work is an unmissable temporary monument to an impossible, yet evocative future.

Oscar Santillán

B. 1980, Milagro, Ecuador. Lives and works in Amsterdam and Quito, Ecuador.

Visitors who step into the small room, bathed in orange light, that houses Oscar Santillán’s two newly commissioned artworks, may hear strange voices. What appear to be knotted tree burls (they’re actually 3D-printed) are fitted with speakers and hang from metal cables that drape luxuriously throughout the space. These pendants respond to visitors’ sounds, emitting glitchy guttural noises from a machine learning system trained on the work of legendary Peruvian singer Yma Sumac. Like her music, the sounds channel bird calls, chants, and rhythmic melodies.

It’s a far cry from the “how-can-I-help-you” AI responses we’ve become used to in 2026, yet the work nods to the instinctive and urgent human needs that these technologies are answering. The sculptures’ rough-hewn aesthetic suggests something wild and unformed: a contrast with the second part of the commission, a glass block filled with water and pulverized computer parts that replicates a data server tower. Santillán’s vision is both futuristic and organic, coaxing human responses from cutting-edge technology—no wonder he’s been tapped to represent Ecuador (along with anti-colonial collective TAWNA) at the Venice Biennale 2026.

Kamala Ibrahim Ishag

B. 1937, Omdurman, Sudan. Lives and works in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.

One of the clearest representations of the biennale’s focus on the procession is in Sudanese artist Kamala Ibrahim Ishag’s oil painting Procession (Zaar) (2015), which depicts a ring of ghoul-like bodies. They dissolve as if in smoke, led by a central figure in a white robe. These wispy, fluid beings appear across a pale green and beige background that draws the artist’s subjects together in striated leaf shapes. Ishag is a renowned figure in Sudanese painting, uniting influences from Arab and Islamic traditions and African culture. She’s also known for founding the Crystalist Group, whose manifesto envisions the world like a crystal—transparent but constantly in flux, according to where you stand. In this work in particular, she draws on the traditional zaar healing ceremonies that take place across the Horn of Africa, where dance, incense, and singing bring groups of women together in harmony.

Several other paintings in the show further explore the union between humans and the environment. Her diamond-shaped canvas Lady Grown in a Tree (2017), for instance, is filled with pale, swooping lines that untangle like vines. A woman’s face and feet barely peek through these strokes, suggesting a body floating in a web of overwhelming plant matter.

Agustina Woodgate

B. 1981, Buenos Aires. Lives and works in Buenos Aires and Amsterdam.

The UNESCO World Heritage site of Al-Ahsa is an oasis region in Saudi Arabia with an irrigation system that’s nearly 2,000 years old. It’s this system that inspires The Source (2026), part of artist Agustina Woodgate’s ongoing series of sculptures exploring infrastructure. The outdoor piece (one of several “arenas,” as the curators named them) consists of several tiled, fully functional public water fountains, organized with steps on circular platforms.

Tucked into a small outdoor alley between two of the Biennale’s large halls, each sculpture has several metal drinking spouts, placed on the fountains’ surface like the sundials that helped farmers allocate water in Al-Ahsa. As the viewer walks around the artworks, mundane plastic tubing and tanks appear on the back side of the works, a tongue-in-cheek reminder of what it often takes to make water appear as if by magic. It’s a reminder of all the resources that we take for granted.

Petrit Halijaj

B. 1986, Kostërcc, Kosovo. Lives and works in Berlin.

Printed felt cutouts depicting a massive purple swan, a darkly scribbled tree, and a cut-up pink cloud all hang on threads, like massive set pieces, in Petrit Halilaj’s installation Very volcanic over this green feather (2021). Viewers can wander through this imagined landscape filled with scribbled bushes, where naively drawn birds fly overhead.

These images are blown-up versions of drawings that the artist made at the age of 13. They commemorate his time in Albania’s Kukës refugee camp, where he participated in an art therapy program after fleeing his war-torn home of Kosovo in the ’90s. Halilaj transforms these hopeful images via large-scale installation: a poignant exploration of his childhood visions and dreams, made amid the horror of war. It’s typical of Halilaj’s theatrical and personal multidisciplinary practice, which represented Kosovo at the nation’s first ever Venice Biennale pavilion. It’s a delicate balance between personal experience, often set against official historical narratives.

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Henrike Naumann, artist to represent Germany at this year’s Venice Biennale, has died at 41. https://ift.tt/vNf5pa8

Henrike Naumann, the influential German artist known for making politically charged installations out of mass-produced furniture and found household objects, died on February 14th in Berlin. She was 41. According to a statement shared on Monday by Naumann’s partner, Clemens Villinger, the artist died “after a cancer diagnosis that came far too late.”

She was preparing to exhibit her work alongside that of artist Sung Tien at Germany’s pavilion for the 61st Venice Biennale, which will be organized by curator Kathleen Reinhardt. It is scheduled to open this May. “Until the very end, she arranged objects to produce and implement her heartfelt project, the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale,” continued Villinger’s statement. “The exhibition in Venice was and is being realized in the same way that her career began: as a Gemeinschaftswerk, a collaborative effort, guided by Henrike’s artistic vision,”

The news was confirmed by IFA, the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations), which oversees the German pavilion. In a statement, they said: “It is with great sadness and sorrow that ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen bids farewell to Henrike Naumann, an extraordinary artist and personality who passed away on 14 February 2026 after a short, serious illness. Our heartfelt condolences and deepest sympathy go out to her family and all those close to her during this difficult time. Her death leaves a painful void – not only in the art world, but also in our work as an institution promoting international art exchange.”

Naumann was born in Zwickau in what was then East Germany in 1984, and her work reflected the geopolitical dynamics and rapid upheavals in German society after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall. She often repurposed the cheap furnishings that populated East German homes in the 1990s after the reunification, and incorporated video and sound works to represent how this era contributed to extreme radicalization.

Her work has been shown at SculptureCenter in New York, the Busch-Reisinger Museum at Harvard University, and the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, among other institutions. She was awarded numerous prizes and fellowships including the Karl Schmidt-Rottluff postgraduate scholarship, the Max Pechstein prize from the city of Zwickau, and the Villa Aurora & Thomas Mann House fellowship.

Naumann studied costume and stage design at Dresden’s Academy of Fine Arts before briefly working in scenography for television and film. In 2012 she created Triangular Stories, an installation that envisions the childhood bedrooms of neo-Nazi terrorists. In it, she included a Mickey Mouse figurine, baseball bat, and other objects of childhood play alongside the Imperial War flag popular with the extreme right. At the center, a television plays VHS home movies of the imagined inhabitant’s life. And in 2022, Naumann made her U.S. solo debut with the presentation of “Re-Education” at New York’s SculptureCenter, an exhibition that examined the use of furniture in the January 6th insurrection.

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Carolina Herrera F/W 2026 runway show stars Amy Sherald and other art world women leaders. https://ift.tt/DIRwPoQ

On Thursday, Carolina Herrera unveiled its fall 2026 collection in a presentation that featured prominent women from the art world as models. Included in the New York fashion week show were painter Amy Sherald; photographer Ming Smith; painter and actress Anh Duong; sculptor Rachel Feinstein and her daughter, Flora Currin; performance artist and painter Eliza Douglas; and gallerist Hannah Traore of the eponymous Hannah Traore Gallery.

The women were selected to walk in the show by the brand’s creative director, Wes Gordon, who succeeded Carolina Herrera when she stepped down in 2018. According to Gordon, his latest collection was inspired by the women who have shaped the landscape of art. “This collection really began with some people I admire. A community of women artists, muses, gallerists, curators, collectors whose work I’ve followed and learned from over time—women who shape culture,” said Gordon in a video shared to the brand’s Instagram.

The show was held in New York’s Meatpacking District in a skylit venue adorned with handpainted murals from painter and set designer Sarah Oliphant. Her geometric compositions in dusty hues of yellow, sky blue, red, and baby pink drew inspiration from the collection, and were intended to evoke the feeling of being at an artist’s atelier.

Images of American collector Peggy Guggenheim and her avant-garde style were on Gordon’s moodboard, as were works by painter Agnes Martin, sculptor and collector Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, and artist and art dealer Betty Parsons.

This season was a tribute to the brand’s Women in the Arts program, an initiative that supports women’s voices in the arts across multiple disciplines. The program provides a platform for these artists by offering education and training opportunities, staging and supporting exhibitions, donating funds and materials, and inviting artists to collaborate with the fashion house on shows and campaigns.

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$21.1 million Kandinsky painting to headline Christie's London March evening sale. https://ift.tt/x692AgK

Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky’s Le Rond Rouge (1939) will headline Christie’s forthcoming 20th and 21st century evening sale in London, which is scheduled to take place on March 5th.

The abstract work was in the artist’s collection until his passing in 1944, at which point it passed to his widow, Nina Kandinsky. It is estimated to fetch between £10.5 million–£15.5 million ($14.3 million–$21.1 million).

Kandinsky painted Le Rond Rouge in the spring of 1939 during his years in Paris. The artist moved to the city in late 1933 after the Nazi government closed the Bauhaus school in Berlin where he had been teaching. It was during his time in the French capital that he developed a new visual vocabulary that incorporated more pastels and biomorphic forms. The painting is composed of geometric and sinuous forms that seem to be radiating energy from within. It was first exhibited at a solo presentation of the artist’s work in the spring of 1946 at the Galerie René Drouin in Paris. It was also shown during Kandinsky’s memorial exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in the winter of 1947–1948.

The sale is part of a week of auctions taking place across major London auction houses during the first week of March.

Also included in the 20th and 21st century sale is Claude Monet’s Le Parc Monceau (1878), which carries an estimate of £5.5 million–£8.5 million ($7.49 million–$11.6 million). The work has not been seen publicly since 2007, when it was acquired at Christie’s.

In the painting, Monet plays with the contrast of light and shadow in a way that came to define his Impressionist work of the 1870s. It is one of three tableaux of the park in Paris’s 8th arrondissement painted by the French artist, who completed three other views two years earlier. Two of the paintings from the series are part of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection.

Also featured in the sale is Henry Moore’s King and Queen (1952-53), which carries an estimate of £10 million–£15 million ($13.65 million–$27.29 million). The sculpture is making its auction debut after being held in the same British private collection for more than seven decades.

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New York’s High Line announces 2026 commissions by Derek Fordjour, Katherine Bernhardt and more. https://ift.tt/hJstbnG

The High Line in New York has unveiled its new slate of art programming for the spring 2026 season. Presented by High Line Art, the elevated public park in lower Manhattan has commissioned new works by Patricia Ayres, Ximena Garrido-Lecca, Derek Fordjour, Katherine Bernhardt, Saba Khan, Marianna Simnett, Filip Kostic, and Ana Hušman.

The new works, which include sculptures, a billboard, and video exhibitions, are organized around the theme of bodies, labor, and infrastructure, and curated by High Line Art’s director and chief curator, Cecilia Alemani.

“With each new commission and each artist’s unique way of interpreting the world we live in and shape, I learn so much, from topics as wide-ranging yet still connected as the human body, agriculture, and cultural expression,” said Alemani.

New York–based artist Patricia Ayres will present her first series of outdoor sculptures, titled 2-18-5-14-4-1-14-3-12-15-14-6-5-18-20, 7-5-18-2018-21-4-5-8-5-9-6-20-1, and 2-15-14-1-16-9-14-1, on the High Line between 19th and 20th streets. First trained in fashion design before moving towards sculpture, Ayres’s fleshy, towering figures challenge the bodily constraints placed on women by the fashion industry, the prison system, and the Catholic church.

At 23rd street, Peruvian sculptor and installation artist Ximena Garrido-Lecca will present Golden Crop, a 9-foot-tall bronze water fountain that takes the form of a corn cob. To illustrate the toxic health and environmental effects brought on by the routine genetic modification of the crop, Garrido-Lecca’s piece will color the fountain’s trickling water a neon yellow hue, in reference to the chemical runoff that pollutes local water sources used by communities for drinking, fishing, and recreation.

American sculptor, installation, and performance artist Derek Fordjour will present three new painted bronze sculptures of Black figures depicting the tension and expectations placed upon various careers that were historically viewed as pathways to upwards mobility in the African American experience. Including depictions of a waiter and a boxer, these works will be presented alongside Backbreaker Double, Fordjour’s High Line commission mural that was installed in December of last year.

Meanwhile, the High Line’s billboard at the intersection of 10th Avenue and West 18th Street will present Spring Cleaning, a vibrant still life centered on domestic cleanliness and ritual by St. Louis–based painter Katherine Bernhardt.

The High Line also announced its forthcoming video program, including three videos by London-based Pakistani artist Saba Khan on the politics of water. In addition, three films on the subject of football (timed with the 2026 World Cup) will be on view, by Marianna Simnett, Filip Kostic, and Ana Hušman.

Previous High Line commissions include Iván Argote’s giant pigeon sculpture, which is on view through spring 2026. Previous artists commissioned for the park’s prestigious sculpture series include Asad Raza, Pilvi Takala, Carlos Reyes, Teresa Solar Abboud, and more. In spring 2026, Vietnamese American artist Andrew Tuan Nguyen will also create a 27-foot-Buddha for the High Line.

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How This London Collector Is Cultivating the Art of Her Generation https://ift.tt/reZlYsE

When Gigi Surel first stood in front of Pablo Picasso’s Guernica (1937)—the artist’s monumental, visceral response to the bombing of a Basque town—at the age of 17, her reaction was physical. “[It] made me think deeply about the aura of a painting, about Stendhal Syndrome, about the body’s reactions to art,” she recalled. “I wanted to understand it.”

That moment at Madrid’s Museo Reina Sofía set the tone for everything that followed. Surel, now a London-based collector, patron, and curator, approaches art as a deeply personal, almost physiological endeavor.

Growing up in Istanbul, she didn’t spend much time in museums until her teens. But once she started, it became an obsession. Today, her London flat reads like a reflection of this. Art books and catalogues are stacked high on the shelves, interrupted by sculptural lights and small works balanced between spines. The space glows with Eva Gold’s golden wall light, Open (2024). Nearby hangs a painting of a Turkish tea glass framed by an oversized rose by Tasneem Sarkez—a quiet nod to Surel’s heritage. On another shelf sit Graham Wiebe’s sliced book sculptures, their collaged titles forming strange poetic phrases.

Her collection—now encompassing works by more than 35 artists—circles themes of sensitivity, memory, and emotion. In recent years, shaped in part by her father’s illness and passing, she’s been drawn to softness and grief. “Lately, I’ve been drawn to vulnerability,” she told Artsy. “Artists exploring vulnerability, grief, softness. It feels important to have that in my home.”

What matters to her most is connecting with art deeply and intuitively. She often buys works by emerging artists, many of whom are unrepresented by galleries. “It makes me feel like I’m contributing, in some small way, to the art of my generation,” she said.

Collecting, for Surel, began as a search for belonging. While studying law in the U.S., she felt isolated during her master’s degree. Museums became a refuge. She bought memberships to MoMA, the Guggenheim, and the Art Institute of Chicago, which introduced her to like-minded people: “I started talking to people and meeting others who loved art,” she said. “It opened up this whole world.”

As the first in her family to attend university, the art world had once seemed distant. Joining acquisitions committees at the Guggenheim and MCA Chicago became her education. “I thought, ‘okay, I can learn how to collect by being in these groups,’” she said. “I treated it almost like a profession at first. I wanted to do it right.”

During the 2020 COVID lockdowns, while preparing to move to London, Surel found herself online constantly, poring over degree shows and works by emerging artists. One of her first significant purchases during that period was Xu Yang’s unicorn painting, Mirrored Rapunzel Tail (2020), which now hangs above her bed. Soon after came Yaya Yajie Liang’s Gregor Samsa (2022). “Seeing them still feels like home,” she says. The works have travelled with her from flat to flat.

Her tastes encompass everything from the diaristic and delicate to the sharp and cerebral: Christelle Oyiri, Tasneem Sarkez, Selma Selman, Nat Faulkner, Daiga Grantina, Hélène Fauquet, and Dada Khanyisa are among the artists in her growing collection. She compares collecting to getting a tattoo. Rolling up her sweater sleeves to show me her tattooed arms, she explains the similarities as “personal, diaristic, and permanent…some abstract, some edgy, and others are more delicate.”

This passion has grown into a profession. Surel writes for Marie Claire Türkiye and the philosophy magazine Perediza. She curates exhibitions, including a recent group show, “Reassemblage,” at the London gallery General Assembly. And last year, she founded Teaspoon Projects, a platform designed to bring new collectors into the fold.

“One of my biggest missions,” she said, “is bringing first-time collectors into the mix, and that’s getting harder. Even people with disposable income don’t prioritize art. They’ll buy a purse before they buy a painting.”

Teaspoon Projects is her counter-strategy: events, conversations, and invitations to see art. “Collecting takes time,” she explained. “I’m trying to offer a soft kind of education, showing potential collectors my art world and slowly building art lovers.”

That world is generous, intimate, and rooted in relationships. She moves artworks around her flat almost weekly. She writes about the artists she falls for. She spends hours researching emerging practices. “I take art very personally,” she said.

Her advice to first-time art buyers and collectors is simple: slow down. Accept that your taste will change. Like a tattoo, you might look back years later and feel differently—but the work will still hold a memory of who you were.

“Art is a way of understanding ourselves and the world,” she said. “Collecting is the same.”

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