At the Artnet Gallery Network, we make it our goal to discover new artists each and every month, searching through the thousands of talented artists on our website and selecting a few we find particularly intriguing. With the fall season in full swing, we’ve rounded up five exciting artists whose careers we’ll be following closely this season.
With the Artnet Gallery Network, it’s easy to discover new artists around the globe from the comfort of home. Keep an eye out for our monthly roundup of names to watch, but don’t wait to get exploring on your own.
Melissa Misla at Praxis, New York
Home is a core theme in “What a Part of the Apartment Meant,” the latest solo show by native New Yorker Melissa Misla. Created based on a mix of memories and photographs, Misla’s idiosyncratic “portraits” of various parts of her home (which she lived in for 28 years) are vivid and inviting, portraying the otherwise quotidian with an almost childlike wonder. Simultaneously reverent and accessible, Misla’s work effectively conveys the artist’s inner realm while also incorporating the broader world via Nuyorican motifs and Latinx themes.
Santiago Galeas at Sean Horton (Presents), New York
“Semillas de Memoria” is the New York solo debut of artist Santiago Galeas, who paints vibrant portraits of people within the queer community. Galeas meticulously researches the flora and fauna of his ancestral home of Peru or that of his portraits’ subjects, injecting familiar elements from nature into the otherworldly, imagined space of these bright, alluring paintings. Galeas is able to engage with contemporary concepts of identity and environment while reclaiming the genres of portraiture and landscape from problematic traditions.
Mounou Désiré Koffi at Open Art Exchange, Schiedam
Hailing from the Ivory Coast, Mounou Désiré Koffi has created a new series of textile works that are comprised of recycled mobile phone keypads, jute, and linen, which are featured in the group show “Africa Now II.” Each piece centers on stylized, outlined figures in various states of movement or stillness. These depictions of bodies in motion made in recycled materials triangulate the artist’s fascinations with the environment, urbanism, and the frenetic rhythms of contemporary life.
Anina Major at Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Los Angeles
The Bahamas, where artist Anina Major is originally from, plays a central inspirational role in the works presented in “Inheritance,” her first solo show with Shoshana Wayne Gallery. Building a life and home away from The Bahamas led Major to explore the connection between self and place both from a personal standpoint as well as a social and cultural one. Although the artist works in many mediums, including installation and video, the stoneware pieces shown in this exhibition utilize a traditional weaving technique, plaiting, which she learned from her grandmother, and evoke themes of community and identity.
Nino Eliashvili at Dissolution, Tbilisi
With a distinctive, ethereal drawing style, Georgian artist Nino Eliashvili’s work investigates a broad array of internal states, including the spiritual and emotional, as well as ideas of beauty and aesthetics. Though Eliashvili also employs acrylic and oil paints in her practice, it is her skillful handling of watercolor that imbues her work with emotional undertones that work in tandem with her dreamlike, surreal compositions. With their unique symbolic language, Eliashvili’s work opens up a world of interpretive possibilities, yet remains grounded in paradigmatic themes of human existence.