5 Artists on Our Radar in October 2023

“Artists on Our Radar” is a monthly series focused on five artists who have our attention. Utilizing our art expertise and Artsy data, we’ve determined which artists made an impact this past month through new gallery representation, exhibitions, auctions, art fairs, or fresh works on Artsy.

Yuma Radne

B. 2001, Ulaan Ude, Buriad-Mongolia. Lives and works in Vienna.

Having grown up as part of a sizable community of Buryat, an indigenous Mongol people, in Siberia, Yuma Radne draws on people, places, and traditions from her life and transmutes them into paintings with a mythical sensibility. In her recent exhibition at Steve Turner in Los Angeles, titled “The Weight of Water,” nude, spritely creatures are depicted within sprawling landscapes and socially nuanced aquatic scenes, often rendered in complementary blue and yellow shades. For Radne, use of color is a formal consideration, but also a symbolic one: Her blues, for example, reference a Mongolian saying (“Under the great blue sky, there are blue Mongol people”). The intense contrasts in her work heighten their surrealistic atmosphere, as in Dance, dance to my song hypnotique (2023), where two prancing elfin figures are shocks of blue against a vivid ochre sky.

Radne, who is only 22, made her U.S. solo debut with “I Am Angry,” also at Steve Turner, earlier this year. She is currently studying at Central Saint Martins in London, having previously been enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and Shtiglitz Academy in St. Petersburg. Her work was featured in a solo exhibition at the National Museum of the Republic of Buryatia in 2018.

—Josie Thaddeus-Johns

Masamitsu Shigeta

B. 1992, Tokyo. Lives and works in Hoboken, New Jersey.

The rising painter Masamitsu Shigeta has an uncanny ability to distill the essence of city life on canvas. Take, for example, the recent show “One Day Trip” at Gaa Gallery in Cologne, which chronicled a day in New York through the eyes of a commuter. The simple concept belies the poetry of each gemlike painting, depicting familiar scenes, like a tree reflected in a puddle at sunset or a throng of people bustling past outdoor diners. These endearing, everyday snapshots are a welcome salve to the jaded New Yorker who is apt to overlook the city’s many charms.

In works for another show, “Reflections,” currently on view at 12.26 in Dallas, Shigeta focused on the Texan city’s landmarks, again turning everyday moments into sweet vignettes. Notably, this recent work emphasizes the artist’s deft handling of light, which elicits a sense of nostalgia or tenderness for his subjects.

Shigeta completed his MFA at New York University in 2022, after earning his BFA from the School of Visual Arts. He has previously shown with various emerging and tastemaking galleries in the U.S. and the U.K., including Tyler Park Presents, Situations, The Hole, and Cob. Institutions including the Dallas Museum of Art have acquired his work.

—Casey Lesser

Gene A’hern

B. 1993, Katoomba, Australia. Lives and works in Katoomba.

In his first solo show in Europe, presented by Copenhagen-based gallery Brigade, Australian artist Gene A’hern deftly oscillates between figuration and abstraction while maintaining a consistent, recognizable style. Inspired by powerful natural cycles of creation and destruction, A’hern often works en plein air. This environment is felt, even in his abstract works: Looking at the enormous Sky Painting 37 (2023), for example, it’s easy to imagine the wind swirling as the sky darkens to sunset. Rendered in pastel on linen, Sky Painting 37 presents a record of the artist’s energetic movements—sometimes sweeping and broad, other times more contained. The technique is similar to one employed by gestural Abstract Expressionists, such as Willem de Kooning.

Other works by A’hern reveal a German Expressionist influence. For example, Bathers (2022) calls to mind the work of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, who produced many outdoor bathing scenes over the course of his career. But A’hern’s work is not mere pastiche; he builds upon his art historical references in part through the emphasis he places on texture, often layering materials such as yarn and monk cloth atop a pastel or acrylic base.

A’hern received his BFA from the National Arts School in Sydney in 2016. He has mounted solo exhibitions internationally, at galleries including Brigade in Copenhagen, Simchowitz in Los Angeles, and Piermarq in Sydney.

—Isabelle Sakelaris

Serena Korda

B. 1979, London. Lives and works in London.

A single hand drapes delicately off the edge of a table, with rich, brocade-like material pooling around its wrist. Crimson strawberries and sliced lemon are tucked into folds in the fabric, adding to the aura of decadence. But something is off: The hand is blue, almost rotten. Look from another angle, and you’ll see a cross section of flesh where the wrist truncates, exposing bare muscle and bone.

This scene, rendered in stoneware in She’s a Messy Eater (2023), is exemplary of Serena Korda’s striking ceramic work, which marries the ornamental with the grotesque. The sculpture was exhibited in Cooke Latham Gallery’s booth at The Armory Show last month—Korda’s first solo appearance in the U.S. With its offerings of dainty, disembodied arms and headless headdresses inspired by historical garments, the presentation expanded on “The Maidens,” Korda’s body of work examining the disempowerment of women in myth and history. Given her chosen themes, the artist’s choice of medium is pointed: Korda willfully complicates ceramics’ association with domestic and decorative objects.

A graduate of the Royal College of Art’s MA program in printmaking, Korda had her first solo exhibition at Cooke Latham Gallery, which represents her, in February. Last year, her work was exhibited at the Hayward Gallery as part of the exhibition “Strange Clay: Ceramics in Contemporary Art.” In addition to ceramics, she is known for her performance work.

—Olivia Horn

Zana Masombuka

B. 1995, Siyabuswa, South Africa. Lives and works in Johannesburg and Sterkloop, South Africa.

Zana Masombuka’s evolving practice resonates across a range of mediums, from photography to sculpture to performance. In a recent exhibition at October Gallery—her solo debut in London—the South African artist presented a new body of work that weaves together elements of Ndebele folklore and contemporary perspectives, employing striking color palettes and bold geometric patterns often expressed through the medium of her own body.

Titled “Nges’rhodlweni: A Portal for Black Joy,” in reference to a sacred space for gathering and ritual within Ndebele households, the exhibition taps into rich spiritual and ancestral legacies. Each photograph embodies a distinct ceremonial spirit from Masombuka’s heritage. The spellbinding portrait Nges’rhodlweni: eBandla 2 (2023) depicts a headless figure against a spiral backdrop, seemingly transcending the boundaries of the physical world.