Joy Labinjo, Two Women in Conversation, 2019. Estimate $7,000 - 10,000. New Now New York.
Allison Zuckerman
Allison Zuckerman, Tavern Song, 2018. Estimate $10,000 - 15,000. New Now New York.
Allison Zuckerman reimagines the art historical canon with incisive, pluralistic whimsy. She might manipulate a portrait by Cranach with a collage of additions: a Lichtenstein-like hand, Snow White birds, and a tempting slice of cake. As Zuckerman described her work to Artnet, “For me it evokes the idea that we are living in an age where everything is out there and you can post and repost someone’s photo. It’s like the Wild West.”
As modern as her work is, her origin story might be more so; after earning her MFA from the Art Institute of Chicago, Allison Zuckerman promoted her work on Instagram and institutional recognition soon followed. The artist has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, including at Kravets Wehby Gallery and the Rubell Family Collection.
Nikki Maloof
Nikki Maloof, Moonflowers Close, 2017. Estimate $10,000 - 15,000. New Now New York.
When asked about her emotional ambitions for her work, Nikki Maloof said that she strives to capture “equal parts joy and anxiety.” Her work swells with rich visual references, luxuriating in silken surfaces, and also gives you pause, as she floats in absurd and dark symbolism, like disemboweled fish and worrying newspaper headlines. Trained at Indiana University and Yale University, Maloof expresses all the complexities of human life, laid out in a curious wonderland of consciousness.
Jammie Holmes
Jammie Holmes, Toy Soldier, 2019. Estimate $10,000 - 15,000. New Now New York.
When Jammie Holmes launched George Floyd’s final words—“They’re going to kill me” and “My neck hurts”— into the skies of major American cities this summer, he released a collective grief. As he has said, “Having George Floyd’s last words above the crowds allowed for a greater moment of silence, for peace, like when doves are released in the sky.”
The tableaux-like nature of the aerial demonstration reflects an ongoing illumination of the scars of American racism. The self-taught painter from Thibodaux, Louisiana has depicted Black contemporary life, particularly in the Deep South, with a focus on family, tradition, and advocacy. His work has been featured at institutions such as Dallas Contemporary, where a digital exhibition recorded and amplified his aerial work this past June.
Jenna Gribbon
Jenna Gribbon, Julie Sleeping On The Floor (In Sarah Bowen Gallery), 2006. Estimate $8,000 - 12,000. New Now New York.
The Knoxville-born artist Jenna Gribbon’s figurative works (often nudes) explore the culture of online-looking that her generation was primed for. “I love trying to make the viewer self-conscious of the fact that they’re consuming this image,” she said in an interview. Her works are bold and expressionistic portrayals of queer love and femininity that prod how a personal narrative comes to be—this is often made clear through her evocative titles, such as “Regarding Me Regarding You.”
Joy Labinjo
Joy Labinjo, Two Women in Conversation, 2019. Estimate $7,000 - 10,000. New Now New York.
Featured in exhibitions at the Royal Academy, BALTIC Centre, and The Breeder in Athens, Joy Labinjo’s oeuvre refracts a life lived through multiple identities. Her paintings expand on her heritage—growing up Black, British, and Nigerian—and reference the distinct domesticity and material memories she associates with the 1990s and early 2000s.
Labinjo’s point of view grew from discovering an old family album when she was studying in Newcastle, and she said that she strived towards “just painting Black people doing everyday things,” people talking, living, in the moments in-between. Recently, her work has taken another direction, as she focuses more on exploring the colonialist afterlives and the pronounced importance of storytelling in creating change.
Brandon Landers
Brandon Landers, Baby Broodie in His Bunny Onesie with His Brown Cap Gun, 2017. Estimate $6,000 - 8,000. New Now New York.
Brandon Landers textures his works with a palette knife, creating choppy yet deft portraits that stage what he calls “unrecorded events.” The artist, who lives in Bakersfield, California, cites Jean-Michel Basquiat and Leon Golub as inspirations, accounting for his raw and incisive depictions of daily realities, as well as his coded symbolism.
Wonder Buhle Mbambo
Wonder Buhle Mbambo, Umnqobi II, 2020. Estimate $6,000 - 8,000. New Now New York.
Wonder Buhle Mbambo’s portraits, comprised of alternately deep, shimmering, and vibrant colors, are the product of an organic accumulation of experience and visual inspiration. “In my village at nights it was very dark, which introduced me to silhouettes—of the mountains, of people moving by—and the full moon allowed me to enjoy the stars,” he said in an interview. In this way, the works feel tied to his community—and his family. “I realized,” he explained, “the value of my roots that protected me in this chaotic sphere, and that is what shaped the work you see now.”
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