Established in 1949, “New Contemporaries” remains the foremost annual survey of U.K.-based art students and recent graduates. With prestigious alumni including Paula Rego, Chris Ofili, Tacita Dean, and Mona Hatoum, the exhibition each year presents an undeniable opportunity to glimpse the practices that will shape the future of contemporary art. Returning to Camden Art Centre for the first time in over 20 years, the exhibition is on show in London through April 14th, having previously been presented at Blackpool’s Grundy Art Gallery.
The 2024 edition, curated by leading artists Helen Cammock, Sunil Gupta, and Heather Phillipson, features 55 emerging talents selected from a nationwide open call. Including a refreshingly diverse range of artists from many regions and backgrounds, the exhibition ricochets between mediums, methodologies, and ideologies.
Due to the quantity and variety of works on show, it is liable to feel somewhat disjointed. Yet, on close inspection, it’s clear that the exhibited artists are united by the urgent social and political concerns that underpin their practices, alongside a desire to transgress the boundaries of their respective mediums. Complex subject matter, such as identity politics, class and racial oppression, the climate crisis, migrant experiences, and more, materialize in works that simultaneously draw on global histories of art and culture while boldly carving out pathways to brighter futures.
Here, we highlight 10 standout artists from this year’s edition.
Bunmi Agusto
B. 1999, Lagos. Lives and works in London.
Through highly detailed and fantastical pieces, Bunmi Agusto allows the viewer a glimpse into her interior world. The artist names this psycho-surreal realm “The Within,” and sees it as a sanctuary—a site for uninhibited exploration of cultural theory, psychology, and the self. Combining geometric compositions inspired by West African aesthetics with uncanny landscapes and anonymous figures, the scenes Agusto creates rely equally upon her memory and her imagination.
Her piece on show at Camden Art Centre, Labour of Self Love (2023), is tender yet disconcerting. While a figure carefully plaits another’s afro hair in the foreground, the composition is unsettled by a one-eyed woman who stares boldly out of the frame. Inherently mysterious, this work implies that we are only seeing a fragment of the overall story.
Collective Entry, 2021
Bunmi Agusto
DADA Gallery
Having just graduated with an MFA in fine art from Oxford’s Ruskin School of Art, Bunmi Agusto has presented solo exhibitions in Lagos, with kó, and London, with TAFETA and DADA Gallery, which also featured her work at the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in 2022. In 2023, Agusto caught the eye of acclaimed artist Yinka Shonibare, who included her in an exhibition at Stephen Friedman Gallery in London. Her work has been collected by the Samdani Art Foundation in Bangladesh, among others.
Alexandra Beteeva
B. 1999, Moscow. Lives and works in Glasgow.
Like many artists, Alexandra Beteeva uses painting as a tool to process her reality. As a Russian living in Glasgow, she explores her experience of cultural displacement and disorientation through the lens of nostalgia. By incarnating familiar scenes from found images and presenting them almost as her own memories, Beteeva assumes a closeness with moments she has never witnessed. In this way, her work can be understood as an alternative archive of the self.
Her exhibition piece, That’s more home to you than your house (2022), a peaceful scene of friends reclining by a lake, is reminiscent of a typical summer vacation. The closely cropped composition and casual, welcoming gestures of the figures pictured draw the viewer in as if they are part of the moment.
Schoolgirl, 2023
Alexandra Beteeva
Traits Libres Gallery
A graduate of the Glasgow School of Art, Beteeva’s work has been included in group shows in Dubai, London, and elsewhere in the U.K., and will feature in the RSA New Contemporaries Exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh later this year. It will also be presented at the Drawing Now Art Fair in Paris by Traits Libres Gallery, following her duo exhibition with the Paris gallery in 2023.
Harriet Gillett
B. 1995, East Yorkshire, England. Lives and works in London.
Harriet Gillett’s three miniature paintings are among the most enticing works on show. Intimate in scale and subject matter, they feature hazy renderings of the artist’s friends as if seen through a rose-tinted lens. Blurring the boundaries between abstraction and figuration, Gillett’s barely decipherable scenes demand a focused gaze.
Following an MA at City and Guilds of London Art School, Gillett has presented duo shows with London galleries New Normal Projects and Soho Revue, alongside group exhibitions with London spaces LAMB, Brooke Bennington, and Roman Road, as well as shows in Madrid and Turin. She was shortlisted for the Ingram Prize in 2020 and will undertake the prestigious Palazzo Monti Residency later this year.
Emily Kraus
B. 1995, New York. Lives and works in London.
Having graduated in 2022, Emily Kraus has already been heralded for her distinctive approach to painting. Currently represented by The Sunday Painter, she presented her debut solo show with the gallery in 2023, alongside group exhibitions at Matt’s Gallery and Sapling in London. In the same year, she won the Hopper Prize and was shortlisted for the John Moores Painting Prize.
Kraus’s method is highly unusual: To make her paintings, she stands inside a cage-like frame with a raw canvas looped around it. She then uses the struts of the metal cube as rollers, adding dabs of paint to the material then manually pulling it around the structure. In this way, she creates her recognizable linear marks. Having devised this technique to reconfigure the spatial constraints of her assigned studio at the Royal College of Art, she has come to rely on it as a way of expressing the cyclical rhythms of the natural world.
Stochastic 7, 2022
Emily Kraus
Guts Gallery
Alongside the Camden Art Centre, Kraus’s work is currently also on show at Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool as part of the John Moores Painting Prize, as well as in Duarte Sequeira’s exhibition “Echoes Across Surfaces” in Braga, Portugal and Kadel Wilborn’s group show “Painting, as it Were” in Düsseldorf, Germany. Later this year, she will present a solo at Galeria Mascota in Mexico.
Ranny MacDonald
B. 1994, London. Lives and works in London.
You Run My Mind, 2022
Ranny Macdonald
Moosey
Inspired by the writings of Donna Haraway, Ranny MacDonald explores the relationships between people and dogs as a tool to destabilize anthropocentric worldviews within his work. His canvases, which often have warped perspectives, challenge the viewer to inhabit the canine body and see their environment anew. Like Haraway, MacDonald is deeply concerned by the climate crisis, inviting humanity to build kinship with other life forms through his joyful and humorous pieces. His ecological interest extends to his materials: He uses handmade pigments formed from discarded metal oxides, crushed bricks, and soil.
He studied at both the Slade School of Fine Art and City and Guilds of London Art School, before completing The Royal Drawing School Drawing Year in 2022. In 2023, he presented his debut solo show with Moosey in Norwich, England, and has featured in group exhibitions with galleries including Marlborough London and South Parade. Next year he will undertake the prestigious Palazzo Monti Residency in Italy while preparing for his second solo presentation with Moosey.
Charan Singh
B. 1978, India. Lives and works in New Delhi and London.
Charan Singh’s film They Called it Love, But Was it Love? (2020) is both mesmerising and important. It depicts scenes from the lives of “kothis” (a term used in India to denote an effeminate male who may prefer to be the receiver of penetration in same-sex relationships) on their own terms. Taking individuals who are often cast as nothing more than a “risk group” in public health campaigns and misunderstood through Western notions of gender and sexuality, Singh’s piece positions them as protagonists, illuminating their real lives and human desires.
Drawing on the artist’s involvement with HIV/AIDS advocacy and community activism, Singh’s work seeks to create resistance through storytelling. His depiction of multilayered gender experiences and the ephemeral nature of queer desire in India often aims to reclaim marginalized identities and subcultures.
Singh is currently undertaking a practice-led PhD at the Royal College of Art, and has exhibited with institutions including the Schwules Museum Berlin, the Contemporary Art Museum Houston in Texas, The New Art Gallery in Walsall, and the Photographers Gallery in London.
Jame St Findlay
B. 1994, Scotland. Lives and works in London.
A current student at London’s prestigious Royal Academy, multidisciplinary artist Jame St Findlay presents his film Death Knell (2022), a painful, poignant examination of working conditions under late capitalism. The absurd, yet relatable film features a bewildered office worker who, on realizing he has wasted his life working for an anonymous corporate entity, takes an aimless stroll through a forest. Between climbing trees and swimming fully clothed in a lake, the film’s protagonist delivers sobering monologues detailing his life story—described as “a journey with nothing at the end of it.”
Infused with dark humor, St Findlay’s work often centers around narratives of collapse and impending doom. The artist’s surreal cinematic universe revels in melodrama, identifying with the age-old adage that laughter is the best medicine.
St Findlay has presented recent solo exhibitions at Celine Gallery in Glasgow, and in London at Lucas Gallery and Gathering, following their 2020 residency at RUPERT, a publicly funded institution in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Georg Wilson
B. 1998, London. Lives and works in London.
A recent graduate of the Royal College of Art, Georg Wilson creates whimsical renderings of rural bliss, which have garnered her significant attention. Currently represented by Berntson Bhattacharjee, she has mounted a solo exhibition with the gallery in London, alongside presentations with Palazzo Monti in Italy, Kravets Wehby Gallery in New York and Arusha Gallery in Bruton, England.
The Ingram Prize–nominated artist’s work has also featured in group shows in London at LAMB, Marlborough London, Hannah Barry Gallery, and Soho Revue, and internationally at Philip Martin Gallery in Los Angeles and 1969 Gallery in New York. Wilson also has a current solo exhibition with Public Service Gallery in Stockholm.
Never Leave Again, 2023
Georg Wilson
Arusha Gallery
In her practice, the British landscape is reimagined through renderings of fictional events and fantastic terrains, often populated by bulbous, untamed creatures. By giving form to a world where benevolent beasts convene merrily with their surroundings, Wilson aims to ignite a renewed enchantment with the natural world.
Joshua Woolford
B. 1992, Milton Keynes, England. Lives and works in London.
Developed in 2020, during the height of the Black Lives Matter protests, Joshua Woolford’s film BLK Movement (2020) utilises dance as a powerful form of resistance against racialized and class oppression and heteropatriarchy. By positioning their own body as the subject within the film, the artist draws their personal experience as a member of the queer Black Afro-Caribbean diaspora into the frame.
Working between performance, painting, sculpture, sound, video, and installation, Woolford roots their practice in extensive cultural research spanning literature, music, and art. BLK Movement (2020), for example, features popular music by Nina Simone and Billie Holiday dating back to the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S.
Woolford recently graduated with an MA from the Royal College of Art, and was the 2023 research and interpretation artist in residence at Tate. They have presented exhibitions and live performances at multiple significant institutions including the Museum of Technology in Helsinki; the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, Netherlands; and Soho House, Somerset House, the Black Cultural Archives, the Victoria & Albert Museum, and Tate Britain in London.
Osman Yousefzada
B. 1977, Birmingham, England. Lives and works in London.
Artist and writer Osman Yousefzada’s interdisciplinary practice can be summarised as an act of storytelling. Blending autobiographical material with fiction and ritual, he is interested in the representation of immigrant experiences.
His powerful textile piece on show at Camden Art Centre, Migrant Godxx II (2021), was inspired by fortune-telling devices historically used in Iran, Turkey, and India. Alluding to uncertain futures and a desire to know one’s destiny, the piece can be considered a metaphor for the potential fear and risk associated with moving from one county and culture to another.
A current PhD student at the Royal College of Art, the artist has presented solo exhibitions at renowned institutions including the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, and has been included in group presentations at Whitechapel Gallery in London, Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art, the Cincinnati Art Museum in the U.S., Lahore Museum in Pakistan, and the Dhaka Art Summit in Bangladesh. He will also present a solo show at the Palazzo Franchetti next year during the 60th Venice Biennale, hosted by the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Fondazione Berengo.
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