Joseph Yaeger, Unexpress the expressible, 2021. New Now: Modern & Contemporary Art London.
Joseph Yaeger
The cinematic and dreamlike worlds created by Joseph Yaeger’s paintings have captured the attention of art lovers around the globe. His works have a distinct ability to prod the function of our memory, seen clearly in Unexpress the expressible from 2021. As our eyes scan the image, our mind attempts to place this likeness that seems familiar but escapes our grasp. The work is characteristic of Yaeger’s process, which often takes source imagery from anything ranging from cinema stills to old newspapers or YouTube videos and presents them in his distinct, carefully framed style with watercolor on gessoed linen. The pigments seem to float above the surface, suggesting the liquidity and fluidity of our subconscious.
Yaeger’s works have been on a hot streak on both sides of the pond as of late. At Phillips’ Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale in New York this November, his 2020 work We are constantly on trial sold for more than double its low estimate. His 2021 work Sphinx without a secret achieved an even more resounding success at Phillips London in October, achieving more than 10 times its low estimate. Yaeger’s work has been presented in numerous acclaimed solo and group exhibitions, including at Hauser & Wirth, The Perimeter in London, and Antenna Space in Shanghai. He is represented globally by Modern Art, London, and Gladstone Gallery announced their US representation of the artist this past October.
Ariana Papademetropoulos
Ariana Papademetropoulos, Glass Slipper, 2018. New Now: Modern & Contemporary Art London.
Los Angeles-born multidisciplinary artist Ariana Papademetropoulos’ upbringing in a family of architects, coupled with her peak-millennial generation’s exposure to mass media, has led her to create work that questions how we conceive and express our identities outwardly and the constructions we use to define ourselves privately. Her 2018 work, Glass Slipper was born of a process emblematic of the artist, who often stains architectural magazine pages with water to explore the possibilities of a slightly alternate reality before rendering the results hyper-realistically with oil paint on canvas. The pseudo-fabricated worlds that Papademetropoulos builds allow us to discover how our sense of selfhood may be defined by the media we consume and the structures we build for ourselves. She then subverts their power over us by pointing out the fragility of both in colorful paintings that are as elusive as they are alluring.
Born in 1990, Papademetropoulos studied art at CalArts and, upon graduation in 2012, worked as a studio assistant for the late figurative painter Noah Davis. It was Davis who helped launch the younger artist’s career when he included her work in an exhibition he curated at Roberts Projects in Los Angeles in 2010. Today, she enjoys a devoted following, having participated in lauded solo exhibitions, including at Vito Schnabel Gallery in New York, Wilding Cran in Los Angeles, and Soft Opening in London, where the present work was shown in the 2018 exhibition Sunken Gardens.
Brook Hsu
Brook Hsu, Tree in a Landscape 2, 2020. New Now: Modern & Contemporary Art London.
For Taiwanese-American artist Brook Hsu, an autobiographical approach to mythological and fantastical imagery emerges from her personal study of art history, film, and literature and is realized in a characteristic painting practice that has captured the eyes of art lovers worldwide. Her often miniature works, awash in mysterious green hues, are lauded for their ability to hold our attention and make us question preconceived notions of value and representation. Tree in a Landscape 2 is a sterling example of the artist’s practice, centering a tree that seems somewhat out of context and resonates with a human energy that is perhaps unintentionally reminiscent of the protagonist’s ultimate mental state in Han Kang’s novel The Vegetarian.
Making her successful auction debut at Phillips this past June, quickly followed by her 2018 work satyr family selling for more than twice its low estimate in Phillips’ New Now sale in New York this September, Hsu has been on a bit of a roll since graduating from Yale in 2016. Her acclaimed solo exhibition, The Oklahoma Nature Theater, opened earlier this month at Gladstone Gallery in New York. Her work sits in the permanent collections of Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Yan Du Collection, London; Boros Collection, Berlin; Philara Collection, Düsseldorf; X Museum, Beijing; and Long Museum, Shanghai.
Henni Alftan
Henni Alftan, X, 2020. New Now: Modern & Contemporary Art London.
Considered and carefully framed, Henni Alftan’s paintings most frequently present everyday subject matter in a mode that invites quiet and careful contemplation. “I choose everyday subjects because we have them in common,” the artist recently told the magazine A Rabbits Foot, further noting that she is “showing you things you have already seen, but perhaps in a different way, from a different point of view.” Far from being easy to ignore, her works are captivating for their softness and direct expression. This enigmatic 2021 work, titled X, is characteristic of this approach, depicting a subject that most of us encounter daily with a careful economy that brings an introspective pleasure to the ordinary.
Born in Helsinki and now based in Paris, Alftan earned her MFA in 2004 at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris. Her work has been exhibited widely, most recently at Karma New York and Los Angeles, Sprüth Magers in London and Berlin, Various Small Fires in Seoul, and many more.
Harminder Judge
Harminder Judge, Untitled (soil cursed and lit and burst), 2022. New Now: Modern & Contemporary Art London.
British-Indian artist Harminder Judge’s works exist in the space between painting and sculpture. They are transportive and otherworldly, seeming to float off the wall due to his careful process of layering pigments into wet plaster before sanding, polishing, and oiling the surface. These sweeping panels feel like portals to a mystical dimension, vibrating with an energy that is at once reminiscent of Indian neo-tantric painting, Abstract Expressionism, and color field painting. This 2022 work is a shining example of the remarkable acuity of Judge’s practice, with the vibrant bright colors seeming to confront the darker edges with almost geological force across the stone-like surface. The work almost appears to undulate with prolonged viewing — the longer you look at it, the more it reveals.
Born in Rotherham, UK, in 1982, Judge graduated from the Royal Academy Schools in London, where he is based today. His work has rapidly achieved success, seen in lauded solo exhibitions from Spain to London, India, Los Angeles, Vienna, Hong Kong, and many more.
Rebecca Ackroyd
Rebecca Ackroyd, The rabbit, 2021. New Now: Modern & Contemporary Art London.
Living and working between London and Berlin, Rebecca Ackroyd has cultivated a personal practice across painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, and film that engages with her own state of mind in a nightmarish world. Body horror, lived anxiety, and psychoanalytical symbols abound in her works, which compellingly resonate with both global institutions and collectors. In this 2021 work, The rabbit, a woman — her lengthy hair appearing like a rabbit warren, her face ambiguously flush red with either anxiety, pain, or release — swoons. Her subconsciousness seems to be exiting her body in a swirl of effervescence originating from the eyelids — the very skin that shuts her eyes away from us. This hazy swirl of unease is further suggested by the work’s evocative title, which calls to mind metaphors for rabbits as the hunter’s prey, a commentary on contemporary womanhood.
Ackroyd received a Post Graduate Diploma in Fine Art at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 2015 and has since exhibited widely. Her works have been shown internationally in France, Germany, Korea, Denmark, and Norway and sit in the permanent collections of the Musée d’Art Contemporain de Lyon; The Bunker Art Collection, Palm Beach, FL; Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing, and more. She is represented by Peres Projects Berlin and this work marks her auction debut.
Danny Fox
Danny Fox, The Prodigal Son Sucks Dick For Crack, 2018. New Now: Modern & Contemporary Art London.
Immediately striking and unrelenting in its presentation of its subject matter, British artist Danny Fox’s The Prodigal Son Sucks Dick For Crack reveals a complex depth of thought once the initial shock has worn off. By reimagining the low point of the Prodigal Son’s arc as an act of harlotry between two figures in a tangle of racial ambiguity and the low points of addiction, Fox calls attention to a myriad of contemporary issues and perhaps identifies inequality as their source. By positioning the Prodigal Son in a referential kneeling pose — here drawn from the Victorian-era prodigal son lithographs by the Kellogg Brothers but transported to Los Angeles’ Skid Row — Fox calls our attention to the story’s ending, with the protagonist kneeling before his wealthy father. As we recall, the Prodigal Son is immediately forgiven and showered with riches and fine foods amid a famine. In this sense, Fox’s work highlights a stark contrast between the two figures’ social stature and questions what can be defined as sin and who is eligible for redemption in contemporary society.
Born in 1986, the self-taught artist is a rising star in the art world, with his 2018 work D. Livingstone As Old Man achieving more than three times its low estimate at Phillips London just this July. Now based in Los Angeles, Fox has formed a close relationship with the painter Henry Taylor. Fox keeps his studio next door to Taylor’s and has exhibited his own works at Chinatown Taylor — the elder artist’s Los Angeles gallery. His work has also been exhibited globally at Alexander Berggruen, New York; The Saatchi Gallery, London; Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles; V1 Gallery, Copenhagen; Yuz Project Space of Art, Shanghai, and many others.
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