This year's iteration of Miami Art Week will feel quite different. For those already in South Florida, a select programme of cultural events, tours and exhibitions will still take place; however, Art Basel Miami Beach – the art calendar highlight – has like most other art fairs gone virtual. Collectors will be able to virtually peruse 255 galleries from 30 countries. Featuring works by established artists and newcomers alike, it can be overwhelming to navigate. Here are some of our picks to look out for. These promising painters are early in their careers and prime for collecting – check them out at Art Basel's online viewing rooms, and beyond.
Jadé Fadojutimi
(image at top)
Perhaps this is also a current pattern of life, 2020
Oil, oil stick and acrylic on canvas
200 x 150.7 cm
Courtesy the artist and Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London.
Photograph: Eva Herzog
As the youngest artist held in collection at Tate Modern, 27-year old Jadé Fadojutimi is one to watch. Charged with ecstatic energy, her oil stick and acrylic paintings combine gestural brushstrokes amid bursts of vibrant colour, reflecting her shifting moods at the point of creation.
Incorporating a diverse range of influences from fashion textiles to Japanese anime, Fadojutimi uses the canvas as a tool for interrogating her identity, memories and emotions. The result of such reflections manifests in euphoric and otherworldly landscapes, a mesmerising oscillation between figuration and abstraction.
Chris Huen Sin Kan
MuiMui and Balltsz, 2020
Oil on canvas, 220 x 260 cm
Courtesy the artist and Simon Lee Gallery.
Hong Kong-based artist Chris Huen Sin Kan has rapidly risen to the spotlight over the last months; his elaborate and vivacious paintings capture the zeitgeist of our time to palpable effect. Exploring the beauty of domesticity, Huen depicts intimate moments with his wife, children and dogs in his Yuen Long home and studio.
The artist's technique intertwines influences from abstraction to Chinese ink painting, unleashed onto the canvas with multiple dimensions and perspectives. Heightening the sense of immediacy in the scenes, Huen works without sketches, instead painting directly from photographs to reveal the fleeting beauty of everyday moments.
Joy Labinjo
Lady from Liverpool, 2020
Oil on canvas, 200 x 180 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Tiwani Contemporary.
British-Nigerian artist Joy Labinjo is distinguished by her bold, large-scale paintings which, taking inspiration from family photographs, portray intimate scenes of contemporary life. Exploring ideas around race, power, identity and belonging, the artist invites viewers to contemplate collective notions of history and how they translate into present-day experiences.
Advancing a new visual language and benchmark for Black representation in painting, Labinjo is a compelling force in 21st-century portraiture.
Tom Anholt
Time Apart, 2020
Oil on linen, 170 x 200 cm
Courtesy of Josh Lilley Gallery.
British artist Tom Anholt is making his mark as one of the most electrifying forces shaping contemporary figurative painting. Adopting a scholarly perspective on the medium, the Berlin-based painter draws inspiration from over 5,000 years of art historical traditions, from the ancient art of Persian to Modernism.
Reinterpreting and intertwining these influences, Anholt's psychedelic paintings invoke a mixture of everyday scenes and surreal places, submerging the viewer into an optical journey of colour and movement.
Gallery image courtesy of Art Basel.
Art Basel Miami Beach will commence with two virtual VIP Preview days on 2–3rd December, then take place online from 4–6th December.
Quintessentially Art Patrons are invited to an exclusive virtual tour of Art Basel Miami Beach on Thursday 3rd December. We will be joined by some of the world's top collecting families: Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo with her son Eugenio, Anita Zabludowicz with her daughter Tiffany and David Neumann with his daughter Saskia.
For information on Quintessentially's Art Patron Programme, please contact us here.
