Image via Complex Original
Last November, Christie's auction house in New York grossed the highest amount ever for a contemporary auction—$852.9 million across 75 lots. 319,000 people visited the Jeff Koons retrospective at the Whitney before the museum closed its doors to move to its new home in New York's Meatpacking District. Another 110,000 visited the Serpentine Galleries in London to hang out with Marina Abramovic as she spent 512 hours in the gallery. Miley Cyrus and André 3000 jumped on the art band wagon at Art Basel Miami Beach last month; she brought her "Dirty Hippie" exhibition at the Raleigh Hotel with a performance while he exhibited the jumpsuits he had worn on the Outkast Festival Tour.
But what’s next? What will get the art hacks and celebrity commentators tongues wagging this year? How can you get a piece of the multi-billion dollar industry that is the art world? Here are our picks of 15 Artists About to Dominate 2015.
Matthew Best
Location: Hartford, Conn.
While Matthew Best’s work may at first appear to be composed purely of abstract shapes, his canvases are in fact investigations of the body, both physically and mentally, and draw inspiration from his study of yoga. “Varying weights of color, shape and line balance against one another; removal of any one element would result in the collapse of the painting” Best explains on his website. Photographs of his paintings can be seen in the public art project, “Supernature” in Arlington, Va. This month, Best’s solo show “Limited Means” opens at the Gallery at Three Rivers Community College in Connecticut and runs until March 13.
Terry Bradley
Location: Belfast, Northern Ireland
Terry Bradley has had a varied career. When he left school, he and his two brothers decided to set up a crystal glass factory. When that closed, he opened his own clothes shop and, following that, worked as a model. But all the time he drew, and he knew that was where his passion lay. His stylized paintings incorporate graffiti techniques, tattoo imagery, and facial expressions reminiscent of those found in Otto Dix’s work. He has exhibited around the world, including having a sell-out show in Sydney, Australia, but is most proud of his show in the signature Titanic building in Belfast. Being asked to serve as a Brand Ambassador for Harley Davidson was an added coup for the motorbike fan.
Jonathan Paul Davies
Location: London
Manchester-born artist Jonathan Paul Davies did his undergrad in Sheffield before moving to the States in 2005 for his MFA at the New York Academy of Art. After becoming a Fellow there, he returned to the UK and is currently based in London where he continues his painting and sculpture practice. His work channels Renaissance-style dedication to detail and perfection of the body, while adding his own unique twists, morphing human, animal, and bird forms into dazzling chimeras. It was therefore no surprise that he was nominated for the Young Masters Art Prize this year. His work has also appeared in the Skira Rizzoli published book The Figure: Painting, Drawing and Sculpture.
Conor Harrington
Location: London
Hailing from Cork in the south of Ireland, Conor Harrington started out spray painting walls after discovering Martha Cooper’s seminal book Subway Art as a teenager. Little did he know back then that he would end up being photographed by her when he threw up some work for the project “Underbelly Paris.” Not that Harrington does throw-ups per se; his beautifully executed paintings mix masterpiece techniques with contemporary graffiti flourishes. Last year he stormed New York with his solo show “Eat and Delete” in an old gym in Manhattan, while this year sees him painting in Europe and South America while preparing for his first museum show in Moscow in early 2016. No wonder Damien Hirst decided to get in early and start buying his work.
Marguerite Horner
Location: London
When Marguerite Horner graduated in 2004, she was presented with the Kidd Rapinet prize for outstanding MA work by Sir Peter Blake (best known for designing the cover for Sergeant Pepper by The Beatles). Her paintings of urban landscapes, which can at times appear bleak, investigate ideas around transience, intimacy, loss, and hope. She has since exhibited at the 54th Venice Biennale, the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and the Threadneedle Prize, as well as a number of group and solo shows. Later this year, her work will feature in group shows at both the Maidstone Museum & Art Gallery and the Swindon Museum & Art Gallery.
Ramon Maiden
Location: Barcelona
King of the ballpoint pen, Ramon Maiden gathers images from Catholic iconography and pin-ups by Alberto Vargas to scientific drawings and art nouveau works by Alphonse Mucha, and then proceeds to tattoo all over them, creating new, beautifully detailed appropriated works. This year he has a solo show in London’s Stolen Space Gallery (owned by graffiti artist D*Face), as well as another solo show in Australia later in the year, and his work will also be popping up in various group shows around the globe as well as at tattoo conventions in Brighton, England and Gothenburg, Sweden. When he’s not making art, Maiden runs. And runs. And runs. Last April, he completed the Marathon de Sables, a race through the Sahara over five days covering around 250km/155 miles.
Sarah Maple
Location: Sussex, England
“Maple's work relies purely on her being attractive and Muslim.” Sarah Maple was so amused by this ignorant comment posted on a website that she decided to use it as her Twitter bio. Her work is certainly challenging, looking at issues many artists shy aware from, including menstruation, Islam, and women in the workplace. Her “Disney Princesses” series saw her dressed as various Disney characters, but in serious roles, such as a surgeon or a scientist or a judge. She has been championed by Tracey Emin and in 2007, she won the Saatchi Gallery’s 4 New Sensations art prize. This year she has exhibitions scheduled in Amsterdam and New York and will also be launching her first book.
Franck de la Mercedes
Location: New York
Born in Nicaragua and raised in New York, Franck de la Mercedes is probably best known for his “Priority Box” art series, which he conceived in 2006. Over the years, he has shipped over 12,000 of the abstract painted cardboard boxes that appear empty, but have the words “Fragile. Contains: Peace” (or love or hope) written on the side, around the world. Last year, his Post No Bills egg was displayed alongside egg sculptures by Mark Quinn, Julian Schnabel and Jeff Koons for the Fabergé Big Egg Hunt in New York. Sadly, in the same year he lost over a decade of work in a fire that destroyed his home and studio in Weehawken, N.J. He has relocated to Washington Heights in New York where he is developing a new body of work.
Hormazd Narielwalla
Location: London
Life is all about asking the right questions. When Hormazd Narielwalla was working at a Saville Row tailors, he asked why some of the suit patterns were stacked in envelopes. It turned out that the owners were deceased and they were due to be shredded. Narielwalla scooped them up and transformed them into collage art works in a project called “Dead Man’s Patterns.” His first solo show, “Study on Anansi,” was sponsored and exhibited by Sir Paul Smith in 2009, and he exhibited as part of Collect 13 at the Saatchi Gallery in 2013. This spring celebrity tailor Timothy Everest has invited Narielwalla to exhibit work in his London atelier, and in May he will launch his limited edition book Anansi Tales.
Alexandra Pacula
Location: Brooklyn
Although Alexandra Pacula was born in Poland, when you see her paintings, you can’t imagine her living anywhere other than New York. Her oil paintings depict the city at night with swirling colors and lights as if you were zipping through the streets in the back of a taxi trying to take it all in. They leave you breathless, with a desire to immerse yourself in the city with all its chaos. Pacula has exhibited around the world, including Russia, France, England, Spain, and the US and has work in Harvard Business School’s and Seton Hall University’s collections. This year she plans to travel to Japan, China, and Korea and research her next solo show which will take place at Galley Henoch in New York.
Nathaniel Rackowe
Location: London
While he may work with lights, Nathaniel Rackowe is clear about the fact that he is not a light artist. “I think that light is definitely an important material in my palate of materials but I don’t give it greater importance than other materials I use like steel or cement or timber or glass in the work,” he explained to Complex. His dramatic sculptures have appeared at Art Basel Miami Beach, the Calvin Klein store in Manhattan, and in the city of Lima, Peru as well as exhibitions around the globe. He currently has two solo shows: one at Galerie Jérôme Pauchant in Paris until Feb. 14 and another at Lawrie Shabibi in Dubai from Jan. 12 to Feb. 28.
Antonio Santin
Location: Brooklyn
How do you mix the sinister with the sublime? Spanish artist Antonio Santin might suggest a painting of a beautiful yet rumpled rug. The reason for the unevenness is because there’s a woman’s body underneath it. Why she’s there, whether she’s dead or alive, or what it all means are answers the artist wants you to figure out for yourself. Santin has exhibited his enormous canvases internationally, having being based in Berlin before moving to New York in 2013 and has work in the collections of Centre National des Arts Plastiques (CNAP) in Paris, Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art (HVCCA) in New York, and Museu Europeu d'Art Modern (MEAM) in Barcelona, as well as a permanent sculpture commissioned and installed by the city of Madrid. This year he has a solo show scheduled at Marc Straus Gallery in New York and will also be exhibiting work at Art Central, the new art fair in Hong Kong, in March.
Alex Seton
Location: Sydney
Australian sculptor Alex Seton works primarily with marble, using it as a medium to explore contemporary topics, must notably the issue of asylum seekers trying to enter his country. He carved the heavy material to create impossible items—dead weight life jackets and inflatable palm trees—for his exhibition “Last Resort” (currently on show at the McClelland Gallery and Sculpture Park until Feb. 8 and the Linden Centre for Contemporary Art from Jan. 6 until Feb. 22, both in Victoria, Australia). The works in these exhibitions link with “Someone died trying to have a life like mine,” which was originally created for the 2014 Adelaide Biennial, which also addresses Australia’s relationship with asylum seekers. This autumn sees his first European solo show at Galerie Paris Beijing in their new gallery premises in Paris.
Mark Andrew Webber
Location: Reading, England
Working primarily in the area of printmaking, Mark Andrew Webber’s art explores two main areas. He makes beautiful geometric abstract pieces but he also makes maps of cities including London, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin and New York. The maps are not done by just converting Google maps into a nice print, Webber goes to the city and soaks up the architecture, style and typefaces from that city before creating a map that channels all of these elements. In 2007 he won the Silver Cube Award from the Art Directors Club in New York and last year had a large solo show at Londonewcastle Space, curated by The Future Tense’s Ed Bartlett.
Wu Chi-Tsung
Location: Taipei, Taiwan
Born and raised in Taiwan, Wu Chi-Tsung creates atmospheric dreamy works mixing photography, video and set design. He uses everyday materials to create installations that look at elements of urban environments. Wu has exhibited around the world, including the UK, China, Germany, Japan, and India. This month his work appears in the “Prudential Eye Awards” exhibition at ArtScience Museum, Singapore, which opens on Jan. 17 and runs until March 31, in the summer he has work in a group show in Luxembourg, and he will round off the year with a solo show in his hometown of Taipei.