3 Emerging Artists With Must-See Shows to See This Fall
Above: Igshaan Adams in front of his piece Bonteheuwel/Epping, 2021, wood, painted wood, plastic, bone, stone and glass beads, seashells, polyester and nylon rope, cotton rope, link chain, wire (memory and galvanized steel), and cotton twine
Most visual artists don’t get one big break. Instead, they ascend several incremental rungs—a high-profile museum group show here, a sold-out fair booth there—as they muscle their way toward the art-world establishment. The three you find here are each at slightly different points along that trajectory, but all are poised for what promise to be milestones this fall.
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Julia Jo, Valentina Vaccarella, and Igshaan Adams utilize disparate mediums and explore a range of subject matter, but the trio share the rare ability to create art that feels distinctly of the moment. Even if you’re just learning these up-and-comers’ names now, you’ll likely be seeing their work everywhere soon.
Julia Jo
Some artists approach painting like a marathon, others like a sprint. Julia Jo somehow does both. Only a few years out of art school, the energetic Seoul-born, Brooklyn-based painters committed to a whopping three solo shows in 2023. After buzzy outings at Charles Moffett in New York and James Fuentes in Los Angeles, the final presentation is set to open in September at Jessica Silverman Gallery in San Francisco.
Like the artist herself, Jo’s paintings appear to be in constant motion. At first glance they look like swirling all-over abstractions. But take a step back, or peer at an angle, and the outline of a figure comes into focus. In an art world that has become saturated with straightforward figurative portraits, Jo’s elusive perspective feels fresh. Her work has already been scooped up by the likes of Morgan Stanley, mega collectors Komal Shah and Gaurav Garg, and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami.
Jo’s influences range from Rubens’s Baroque takes on Greek mythology to Cecily Brown’s brushy scenes of bacchanalia. “I’m interested in the visualization of drama,” Jo says. “I might start with five different figures—one falling asleep, one on the floor. But maybe it’s actually just one figure, and you’ve had one too many drinks and your world is spinning.”
Jo recently moved into a new studio, a 2,200-square-foot former carriage house, where she can work on as many as 25 canvases at once. (She lives one floor up, a commute that enables her to maximize time spent painting.) “I like to touch every single one when I’m in the studio,” she says. “I’m so eager to keep pushing.”
Valentina Vaccarella
Valentina Vaccarella has managed to turn a favorite millennial pastime—getting lost in niche corners of the internet—into an art form. Her latest obsession, female political leaders and politicians’ wives, has inspired a new body of work that’s poised to make her the talk of the Armory Show in New York come September. Her eerie portraits will be the subject of a solo presentation by the city’s No Gallery, which was awarded the fair’s Gramercy International Prize for a promising first-time exhibitor.
Vaccarella, who has appeared in group shows at hot spaces Shoot the Lobster and Anonymous Gallery, among others, drew considerable attention with her debut solo show at No Gallery last year. The New York–based artist was inspired by infamous madams, including “Hollywood Madam” Heidi Fleiss and Kristin M. Davis, who was caught up in the investigation of former New York governor Eliot Spitzer. Vaccarella transferred their images onto dowry linens that her mother had collected over the years to create evocative, confounding paintings.
“I’m interested in the connection between political unions, marriage, and prostitution, the oldest profession,” she says. Both marriage and prostitution can require a woman to trade sex for material security, and those who veer from societal standards—whether as successful madams or disenchanted wives—often end up facing harsher consequences than their male counterparts.
Double standards, power, and the marketability of women also figure into the paintings Vaccarella will debut at the Armory Show. She juxtaposes images of Syrian First Lady Asma al-Assad, former American First Lady Melania Trump, and former prime minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko, among other prominent women, with symbols of their power and glamour, such as Chanel’s camellia flower.
As soon as Vaccarella completes one series, she’s already dreaming about the next. Stay tuned for her sure-to-be-provocative dive into high-profile divorces.
Igshaan Adams
When South African artist Igshaan Adams couldn’t afford proper materials to prepare his art-school-graduation show, his family allowed him to cut up their couch and some of their clothes and use the cloth as canvas. And when paint was too costly, he ground a mix of gravel and dirt into a fine paste.
Well over a decade later, Adams has emerged as one of the most exciting and sought-after artists working in South Africa. He now presides over a bustling studio of around 20 people, including a rotating cast of extended family members. (They harbor no hard feelings about the sofa.)
Adams’s materials are deeply linked to his personal history: He uses beads, twine, and fabric that are reminiscent of his childhood in Bonteheuwel, a former segregated township in Cape Town. Dreaming of home as a place of quiet splendor, he translates the most frequently traversed paths on the linoleum floors of loved ones and neighbors into delicately beaded maps.
Adams also uses prayer rugs to explore the imprints bodies leave behind. Raised Muslim, he says, “I realized I had to make my own Islam, and [reconsidering] the prayer rugs is making a version of Islam that works for me.”
In the wake of a solo show at the Art Institute of Chicago and a star turn in the central exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 2022, Adams has a big fall ahead: He will unveil his largest installation to date at the São Paulo Biennial in September and present his inaugural solo show at London’s Thomas Dane Gallery in October.
Adams’s success coincides with the art world’s resurgent interest in textiles. “It creates, for me, a feeling of comfort,” he says of the form. “Weaving puts me in the same zone as when I am praying or meditating. It feels like freedom.”
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