Image via Complex Original
Where is Damien Hirst when you need him? In 1988, when he was still studying at Goldsmiths, the artist curated a group show called “Freeze,” featuring the work of many of his classmates. The media turned up and christened them the YBAs—Young British Artists. Charles Saatchi bought some work from the exhibition, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Currently, there is no specific “branding” for emerging artists in the UK. And the YBAs? Well, you would probably need to take out a sizeable loan if you wanted to buy some of their work now. But with over 100 universities in Britain currently offering art degrees, there is no shortage of talent out there.
We’ve picked out a handful of emerging artists working in the UK who have awards and solo exhibitions under their belts, but who you won’t find at Art Basel or Frieze…just yet! Now is the time to get to know this crop of up-and-coming talent.
Duncan Campbell
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
The Dublin-born artist landed this year’s Turner prize for his video piece It for Others, which takes its inspiration from the 1953 film Statues Also Die. The work, which was originally produced for the Scottish pavilion at the 2013 Venice Biennale, looks at “how you can understand certain histories through objects.” Campbell has exhibited internationally, in places like Ireland, Croatia, Germany, and the United States. His previous works have been inspired by Northern Ireland—Make it new John looks at car manufacturer John DeLorean (creator of the Back to the Future cars) and his factory in Belfast, while Bernadette addressed Northern Irish activist and MP Bernadette Devlin.
Wayne Chisnall
Location: London
Shropshire, England-born artist Wayne Chisnall always looks at the ground when he walks. It’s not because he’s shy—he’s looking for materials to use in future sculptures. Many are crafted with found materials, including old wood, nails, doll parts, and children’s toys. His box towers art reflects on childhood experiences of having to pack up and move at short notice, which is why many have wheels in the base for easy transportation. The Royal British Society of Sculptors Bursary Award winner also paints, but next year he plans to take a short break from exhibiting to concentrate on developing several new bodies of work, including creating his own currency, developing a coloring book for children, and making some new bronze works.
Stephen Anthony Davids
Location: London
Hailing from London’s East End, Stephen Anthony Davids originally trained as a sign writer before moving into advertising. He paints in a deliberate, naive style, with an occasional nod to Basquiat, and he also makes sculpture from reclaimed wood. For five years, until 2009, he had his own gallery called f-art in Shoreditch, but now he concentrates on his own work. Next year, he plans on exhibiting in both France and Asia, and will have a second solo show at Rebecca Hossack Gallery in London in the autumn. British retailer John Lewis also came knocking and commissioned him to produce a range of work for its homeware department.
Jonathan Paul Davies
Location: Manchester, England
Manchester-born artist Jonathan Paul Davies did his undergrad in Sheffield before moving to the U.S. in 2005 for his MFA at the New York Academy of Art. After his fellowship there, he returned to the UK, 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.
Nigel Grimmer
Location: London
The subjects in Nigel Grimmer’s photographs tend to be either small plastic toys (such as those featured in his “BeCarefulOfThingsLeftBehind” series, like the doll staring at the telephones with the melancholic caption “I know you’ll not call, but still I keep waiting”) or people he knows playing dead, while wearing animal masks for his “Roadkill Family Album” series. For his current series, “Art Drag Album” (pictured), he places himself in the picture, although hiding behind well-known clichéd reproduction paintings. He hopes to publish his first book next year, titled Anti-Portrait, which will be a combination of an artist monograph and a textbook, while one of his photographs is going to be blown up to four meters high as a mural in the Olympic Park in London.
Dan Hillier
Location: London
Despite creating the artwork for a huge zoetrope for the “Louis Vuitton Marc Jacobs” exhibition in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 2012, and hosting a massive exhibition slash party at London’s Wilton's Music Hall in 2011 where 400 people dressed in Victorian costumes and danced the night away to raucous gypsy music, Dan Hillier is probably best known as the man who made the cover art for Royal Blood’s Mercury-nominated and No. 1 debut album, which appeared on posters throughout London this year. He splices Victorian pictures with animal heads and mystical imagery to create striking pictures. Next year, he has a solo show in the U.S. (but it’s all hush-hush at the moment), and he tells us that he also plans to do “lots of tea-drinking and pottering about.”
Steve More
Location: Edinburgh, Scotland
Scottish artist Steve More started his career in graffiti, but he has transitioned to a more fine art approach. His abstract paintings are done on found materials, such as wood, concrete, or even bill posters, and combined with his use of textured lines, the eye is drawn in and the finger is drawn up (but no, you can’t touch). He continues to be a member of Agents of Change, the international graffiti crew with an abstract aesthetic, and recently exhibited at White Walls Gallery in San Francisco. This year will be a busy one for More, who will be painting a large-scale mural in North Africa with Agents of Change in the spring. He also begins his new collaboration with Cocurata—a high-end New York-based clothing label—that will be released later in the year.
Suzanne Moxhay
Location: London
Essex, London-born Suzanne Moxhay creates digitally altered photographs of strange, surreal empty landscapes using a mixture of her own photographs, painting, and found images. It results in images that are both familiar and unsettling. This year she was joint winner of the “KOD Up & Coming Award” selected by a prodigious panel of YBAs and won the main prize at the Paratissima Art Festival in Turin, Italy. Her work will appear in the London Art Fair in January and will be featured in “Treachery of Images,” a group show in London with Loewe Contemporary, as well as having her own solo show in Turin.
Al Saralis
Location: Hampshire, England
Born and raised in the Rhymney Valley in South Wales, Al Saralis moved to Cardiff as a student before ending up in Hampshire. His work reflects the influence of Renaissance painting and composition, as well as the concept of “classical beauty” championed by artists such as Vermeer and Ingres. He has recently produced a series of paintings called “Birdgherl,” which derives its name from a song written by Antony and the Johnsons and sung by The Unthanks. They feature sparrows, a common British bird that is presently in decline, and refer to the relationship between man and nature. He will continue developing the series in 2015 while exhibiting at various galleries.
Stik
Location: London
Stik is a mystery. No one knows who he actually is but we do know that he used to be homeless and that he hasn’t received formal art training. However, that doesn’t stop his work from being highly sought after. His motif is immediately identifiable—a simple figure—usually formed of just six lines and you can find him dotted around London, as well as in Bristol, and further afield in Norway, New York, Jordan, and Japan. In November he completed Big Mother, a 125-foot (38.2 meter) mural painted on a condemned council block in west London, making it the tallest street artwork in the UK. His “commercial” collaborations tend to only be with non-profit organizations, such as The Big Issue Foundation, Dulwich Picture Gallery, and Amnesty International.