Monstrous Pirouettes, 2023
Mirjam Vreeswijk
Sow & Tailor
Electric Sea, 2022
Nevena Prijic
M+B
It’s summer, and the art world is in the midst of its annual slowdown, with many galleries taking a well-earned rest from the deluge of fairs and exhibitions that fill the calendar during the rest of the year. But even so, most galleries’ walls are far from bare: June, July, and August are the months when many galleries curate group exhibitions where new work from artists on the rise tends to be out in force.
From art world hubs like London and New York to more far-flung art outposts, galleries take the opportunity to showcase the full range of their rosters, as well as new and not-yet-well-known talents. As such, it’s a great time for collectors (and Artsy’s team, for that matter) to be discovering new artists, who are not yet having solo shows or only just started.
Here, we’re sharing a selection of artists from this summer’s group shows who made an impression on us.
Anna Tuori
Featured in: “Summer Show” at Galerie Anhava, Helsinki
Sleepwalking (if the Grass Is Grey Green or Brown or What), 2022
Anna Tuori
Galerie Anhava
Ecce Homo, 2019
Anna Tuori
Galerie Anhava
For me, summer group shows are all about being surprised by work in person that I might not have known about otherwise. Case in point: When I was in Helsinki earlier this summer to see the city’s biennial, I popped into Galerie Anhava. The first thing I saw when I walked into the gallery was a painting by Finnish artist Anna Tuori (Ecce Homo, 2019). I immediately gasped. It’s not a large painting, but its bright, conflicting colors pop out against a black background, creating a smoky-seeming, scribbled apparition of a human figure curled up.
It’s one of several pastel, acrylic, and oil works in this series of works with the same name by the artist that turn skillfully oblique gestural marks into shadowy human forms that shift as you look at them. They remind me, too, of the Florence Peake oil bar works that Richard Saltoun was showing in London this summer.
Tuori’s work was featured in a past edition of the Sydney Biennale and has been exhibited extensively in Finland as well as at her Paris gallery, Susanne Tarasieve. She’s an artist I’ll be keeping an eye on.
—Josie Thaddeus-Johns
Konstantina Krikzoni
Featured in: “Hot Summer Pt. 1,” presented by Swivel Gallery, at cadet capela, Paris; “Hot Summer Pt. 2,” at Swivel Gallery, New York; “Continuum,” at Newchild Gallery, London
Scylles, 2023
Konstantina Krikzoni
Swivel Gallery
Agave II, 2023
Konstantina Krikzoni
Newchild Gallery
While visiting galleries in the Marais in mid-June, I was excited to come upon a group show presented by Brooklyn’s Swivel Gallery in collaboration with cadet capela, at the Parisian gallery’s outpost on Rue Chapon. There, the two rising, tastemaking galleries introduced me to several promising painters. I was especially struck by the vivid palette and lush bodies of Konstantina Krikzoni’s canvases.
The Greek artist, who is based in London, is only a year out from finishing the MA in painting program at London’s Royal College of Art. Yet her works have been shown widely this year so far; they were also featured this summer in a two-artist exhibition with Newchild Gallery at the Frieze No. 9 Cork Street space in London, as well as in Swivel Gallery’s group show at its new Bushwick location. And notably, she had her debut solo show at Newchild Gallery in Antwerp this past March.
Krikzoni takes a striking approach to portraying the female form. Her paintings—rife with hues of fuschia, crimson, peach, and purple—offer up entrancing visions of women’s bodies couched in warm swathes and splashes of paint. While much of the figurative painting we see nowadays feels expected, Krikzoni’s work stands out, harnessing the expressiveness of abstraction while deftly engaging in timeless conversations around beauty, femininity, and sensuality.
—Casey Lesser
Mirjam Vreeswijk
Featured in: “Adorned Self,” at Sow & Tailor, Los Angeles
Far From Heaven, 2023
Mirjam Vreeswijk
Sow & Tailor
Echoes of the Valley, 2023
Mirjam Vreeswijk
Sow & Tailor
“Adorned Self,” a recent group show at the young Los Angeles gallery Sow & Tailor, revels in the decorative, across a range of subjects. Paintings of slick, millennial pink kitchens (by Erin Wright), and of close-cropped, elegantly draped outfits (by Alli Conrad) recall luxurious product photography, while Sabrina Piersol’s vivid flora offer a whimsical take on landscape painting. Particularly captivating to me, though, was the Dutch artist Mirjam Vreeswijk’s work, which lands somewhere between the two styles.
In Vreeswijk’s paintings, ornamental objects are subsumed by saturated, intensely moody landscapes, producing an atmosphere that is both beautiful and eerie. Far From Heaven (2023), for example, situates the silhouette of a candelabra within an apocalyptic red sky, an echo passing between the flames of the candles and the blaze behind them. I find myself drawn to the coexistence of the sensual and the sinister, and the collapsing of the natural and the artificial into a unified, psychically charged space.
Vreeswijk is showing work in both L.A. and New York this summer, having previously exhibited primarily in the Netherlands, where she is based. In September, she’ll open a solo show at Galerie Fleur & Wouter in Amsterdam.
—Olivia Horn
Luke Chidiebube Agada
Featured in: “Where the Wild Roses Grow,” at Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, Schloss Görne, Germany
Last Call, 2023
Luke Chidiebube Agada
Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery
Nativity (Death on the Landscape), 2023
Luke Chidiebube Agada
Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery
Discovering the work of an emerging artist for the first time carries a distinct sense of excitement. While exploring the selection of summer group shows on Artsy, I instinctively gravitated toward vibrant young galleries with dynamic programs and diverse rosters of artists, which is how I stumbled upon “Where the Wild Roses Grow.” The group show is the third edition of Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery’s summer exhibition at Schloss Görne, an 18th-century castle in Germany.
I was particularly drawn to Luke Chidiebube Agada’s dreamlike compositions. The Nigerian artist’s oeuvre bears a stylistic resemblance to Surrealism, embodying the movement’s uncanny allure. Agada’s canvases depict domestic scenes and whimsical landscapes that explore ideas of globalization and migration. Taking inspiration from writers such as Chinua Achebe and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, his recurring motifs—fluid, ghostlike forms and silhouettes—suggest forgotten narratives, inviting viewers to tap into their imagination.
Initially a self-taught artist, Agada holds a bachelor’s degree in veterinary medicine from the Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta. The artist went on to earn an MFA in painting and drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he was a recipient of the Helen Frankenthaler Award.
—Adeola Gay
Nevena Prijic
Featured in: “Into, over and underneath,” at Public Gallery, London
We Were / Now / Coming Together, 2023
Nevena Prijic
Public Gallery
Browsing Public Gallery’s summer group show “Into, over and underneath,” I was struck by a trio of paintings by Nevena Prijic.
The Serbian artist creates densely layered works that pulsate with a rhythmic blend of biology and technology. To create these works, Prijic examines the biomorphic intersections of the body, as well as machines, plants, and insects.
With the vast canvas We Were / Now / Coming Together (2023), Prijic swirls together suspended cocoons and anthropoid-like structures, linked by lapping colorful webs and coils, to vibrant effect. The accompanying two works from the show, New Sex and Collection of Tears (both 2023), present similar dynamics, recalling influences from such artists as Hilma af Klint as well as historical Neolithic architectural Vinča artifacts, which the artist herself has named as a source of inspiration.
This group show at the London gallery—which she shares with fellow up-and-coming artists Jade Thacker and Zhang Wenyi—is the latest in a recent string of exhibitions for Prijic. Last year, she was a part of group shows at The Hole and HESSE FLATOW, and a solo show at L.A. gallery M+B, which also represents her.
—Arun Kakar
Merrick Adams
Featured in: “Fresh Nature,” at Kutlesa Gallery, Goldau, Switzerland
The Point Past Dume, 2023
Merrick Adams
Kutlesa
Topanga Tide, 2023
Merrick Adams
Kutlesa
Los Angeles–based painter and printmaker Merrick Adams creates captivating artworks that evoke the interplay of light on water, encouraging contemplation of nature, memory, and the artistic process. The child of a fisherman and crabber, raised in Virginia, Adams draws from his personal history and connection to the ocean to capture the essence of both sunlight and moonlight reflecting off the sea’s surface.
At first glance, Adams appears to use netting as a multimedia material layered over his canvases; however, a closer look reveals that the “netting” is not overlaid but intricately stamped onto the surface, leaving a textural, dynamic pattern. His use of this pattern involves an innovative process akin to woodblock or silkscreen printing, positioning his practice at the intersection of painting and printmaking.
While exploring Kutlesa Gallery’s group show “Fresh Nature” on Artsy, Adams’s works immediately caught my attention. With their piercing azure tones overlaid with mottled, sorbet-colored pastels, and hypnotic tangles of rippling lines these works beckoned me to dive right in for a swim.
Adams earned a BFA from East Carolina University and an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2020.
—Jordan Huelskamp
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