While the wild ride of this year may be winding down, over here at the Artnet Gallery Network we’re getting a jumpstart on our same-as-every-year resolution to discover more amazing contemporary talents. This month, we’ve turned up everything from tender quarantine still-life photos to watercolors that capture the much-loved pleasures of a thrill-seeking life. 

Below, discover five artists featured on the Artnet Gallery Network that we think are worth knowing about. 

Maria Kreyn at House2Six 

Maria Kreyn, Chasing Memory II (2017). Courtesy of House2Six.

Russian-born, Brooklyn-based artist Maria Kreyn’s paintings reprise Baroque- and Romantic-era tableaux, reconfiguring elements of familiar stories or iconographies in mysterious and unexpected arrangements. Her virtuosically rendered figures seem not to occupy a particular time or place, but instead to wander through a dream world of art-historical references. Kreyn has said that she is attempting to break these techniques and tropes from their traditional roles, and open them to new narratives and histories. Surprisingly, Kreyn, who studied math and philosophy at the University of Chicago, is a self-taught painter. 

Gregory Siff at ArtLife Gallery 

Gregory Siff, 1942 (2020). Courtesy of ArtLife Gallery.

During a year when we’ve all mostly been quarantining at home, Gregory Siff’s new series “The Thrill” captures the long-ago pleasures of a life filled with parties and amusement parks and all sorts of joys that we’re eagerly awaiting to return. On view at Beverly Hills’s ArtLife Gallery, the new works include watercolor series and large-format screenprints and is a veritable menu of longed-for pre-pandemic pleasures. 

Albano Hernandez Dominguez

Albano Hernandez Dominguez, Atlas 1728 Brasilia (2017). Courtesy of Artistics.

Spanish artist Albano Hernández Domínguez enjoys an electric color palette—lime greens, hot pinks, and icy blues predominate his creations. On his canvases, the artist, who goes by the name Albano, creates a pictorial accumulation of geometric shapes—at times they appear with various eras of wallpaper and paint peeking through to the surface, or, with his frequent checkerboard patterns, old kitchen floors that have worn through. But rather than feeling dreary or nostalgic, their bright colors provide a jolt of fun that we could all use in the winter months.

Kyong Lee at Ideel Art 

KyongLee, Record 09 (2020). Courtesy of IdeelArt.

Color, and how it correlates to our emotional realities, is the primary focus of Korean abstract artist Kyong Lee. The Seoul-based painter keeps to a strict process, meticulously planning her colors and mixing and applying them over fixed sets of time. Her works—which range from Pantone-like blocks of color to plant-like tangles—use color as a means of invoking a particular emotional state or sensation.

Res at Zeit Contemporary Art

RES, Pomegranate (2020). Courtesy of Zeit Contemporary Art.

The Brooklyn-based photographer Res has debuted a series of evocative new still-life photographs made during quarantine. Cast alternately with deep shadows and brilliant sunlight, these arrangements of everyday objects—underwear driving on a clothesline, a charging phone with a frayed cord, and pomegranate, dramatically cut—capture the small luxuries and mundane tasks of the passing days.