Searching for the next Picasso, Pollock or Hockney to invest in? We select our 15 favourite artists from 100 Painters of Tomorrow, the result of a global project to find the 100 most important, emerging painters at work today.
Around a century ago today the grandfather of Modern Art, Marcel Duchamp told the sculptor, Constantin Brancusi, “Painting is washed up. Who will ever do anything better than that propeller? Tell me, can you do that?” It was Duchamp’s first ‘Readymades’, specifically, the ‘Fountain’, submitted to the Society of Independent Artists in 1917 which changed the future of art forever. The artwork was rejected but his legacy lives on. 100 years on, the propeller has been replaced by the jet engine, and painting still endures.
100 Painters of Tomorrow (Thames & Hudson) aims to offer a comprehensive overview of contemporary painting globally. Its author, Kurt Beers, director of Beers Contemporary sent out an open call for submissions and contacted over a hundred major art schools for their recommendations. Enlisting the help of an international panel of prominent figures in the art world to act as judges, they filtered the 4,300 entries down to the final shortlist. Here are our top 15.
Born 1980, Osgathorpe, Leicestershire, England.
Lives and works in London, England.
Totems have always provided a rich source of inspiration for artists. What was once an object of significant spiritual value now becomes an object of significant cultural and financial value, yet, the desire for spiritual meaning still exists. Dale Adcock’s geometric totems fill this void with the gravity of their presence, his hard graphic lines have a hypnotic power as if the grains in the wood were morphing into shapes before our very eyes.
Born 1974, Brecon, Wales. Lives and works in London, England.
Strung up on this absorbing black backdrop of negative space, this rich rendition of a hare looks as though it is falling. Frozen in time, it is a decadent yet minimal memento mori we can all consider.
Coral and sponges would be envious of the dazzling array of textures, colours and shapes in Brierley’s paintings. Her work references the classic tradition of still life but her methods of arriving at the final artwork differ vastly. Her abstract forms are created by pouring paint onto the canvas before she intervenes to create these strange yet endlessly engrossing organic arrangements.
Born 1990, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. Lives and works in Savannah, Georgia, USA, and Johannesburg, South Africa
The garish nature of Daniels work actively contributes to its arresting quality, surprising us with its crude confidence. Based on Goya’s Capricho No.65: Donde va mama? Daniels reimagines the original painting from his own experience of witnessing an armed attack on a mother and her child on a train in Cape Town and the “turbulent atmosphere of mob violence” which ensued.
Born 1976, Brighton, East Sussex, England. Lives and works in London, England
If you think the following painting resembles crumpled tin foil you would be right. Daniels creates models of iconic works of art out of aluminium foil before meticulously reproducing the work on oil on board. Subject to the abstract effects of the foil he uses to create his maquettes from and the random interplay of light and shadow, Daniels work is located at a fascinating junction where figurative art meets abstraction.
Source: http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/artists-to-invest-in-100-painters-of-tomorrow