The Artists Trending This May
“Trending Now” is a monthly series focused on artists with a significant growth in followers on Artsy from one month to the next. The artists featured here are making waves in the art world and beyond—from gallery exhibitions, art fairs, auctions, and Artsy, to social media, popular culture, and major publications. All numbers are based on Artsy user engagement from April through May 2023. Here, we spotlight five trending artists.
Andrea Joyce Heimer
B. 1981, Billings, Montana. Lives and works in Ferndale, Washington.
Andrea Joyce Heimer is garnering a wealth of attention in the wake of “Heartbreak on the high plains,” her new show of paintings and drawings at Nino Mier Gallery in Marfa, Texas, on view until June 17. These deeply personal, diaristic works build upon the artist’s distinctive, narrative style, this time tapping into the heartbreaks she’s experienced, from the romantic kind to family tragedies that she endured while growing up in Montana. “Making each [work]was an exercise in retracing a heartbreak that seemed inescapable at the time but whose sting has now lessened,” Heimer wrote in an artist statement. “But most of all, making this work kept my hands busy during the days most clouded by grief—each one a pocket of air where I could breathe a bit while I waited for time to pass.”
This is Heimer’s fourth solo show with Nino Mier. She also had a show with the gallery in Los Angeles last year, as well as solo exhibitions at Half Gallery in L.A., the Vancouver Centre of International Contemporary Art, and the Whatcom Museum in Bellingham, Washington.
Emma Prempeh
B. 1996, London. Lives and works in London.
Heading into Frieze New York this month, Emma Prempeh was widely regarded as one to watch—and her stellar presentation of multimedia paintings with Tiwani Contemporary did not disappoint. While Prempeh was among Artsy’s highlights of Frieze New York, we weren’t alone—the buzz around the artist has also been generated by coverage in Apollo, ARTnews, and a profile in Vogue.
The rising British artist, who has Ghanaian and Vincentian roots, imbues her figurative works with the nostalgia of home while pushing the boundaries of painting through her deft use of symbolically charged materials—such as a faux gold leaf—and video projections that literally awaken the age-old medium.
Tiwani started representing Prempeh in July 2022, shortly after she graduated from the Royal College of Art. That September, she held her first solo show with the gallery in Lagos; earlier this year, she was featured in a two-person show at Tiwani’s London outpost.
Jeanine Brito
B. 1993, Mainz, Germany. Lives and works in Toronto.
Jeanine Brito’s seductive twist on fantasy and beauty has been charming collectors and the fashion set of late. In March, a collaboration with designer Nina Ricci saw one of the artist’s paintings of a lamb transformed into a voluminous minidress with matching leggings. More recently, Brito opened a show with the tastemaking gallery Nicodim in Los Angeles—her first solo exhibition in the U.S.
The Toronto-based German graphic designer–turned-painter is known for figurative works and still lifes that harness fairytales and tap into traditions of Surrealism; the artist’s lush, pretty scenes have depth and are often embedded with darkness. This latest show, for example, is built upon an original fairytale of Brito’s making that draws on the trope of the wicked female villain: It follows a woman who gave birth to a lamb, then skinned it to make a pair of fancy gloves to wear to a ball, and later ate its remains.
In 2022, Brito had a solo show with Madrid’s La Causa Gallery, in addition to a full slate of group shows in the U.K. and Europe at galleries including Huxley-Parlour, Artistellar, Kutlesa, and Eve Leibe Gallery.
James Nachtwey
B. 1948, Syracuse, New York. Lives and works in New York.
Though he’s something of an outlier on this list, James Nachtwey is widely acclaimed as one of the greatest photojournalists and war photographers working today. Since documenting civil unrest in Northern Ireland in 1981, the photographer has dedicated his career to traveling the world to capture conflict, war, and human strife. Recently, Natchwey has been covering the conflict in Ukraine. He received dozens of major awards for his photography and last year he was celebrated in a retrospective at Fotografiska in New York. Though the photographer has been steadfast in his practice for four decades, the current interest was sparked by a recent segment on the popular American television program 60 Minutes, in which he was interviewed by Anderson Cooper.
Sabine Moritz
B. 1969, Quedlinburg, Germany. Lives and works in Cologne.
The German artist Sabine Moritz is attracting attention thanks to the impressive new body of paintings that she’s showing in a pair of exhibitions at Pilar Corrias’s two gallery spaces in London. The shows, titled “Under the Skin” and “Heart of Drought,” feature vibrant abstract works teeming with rich colors, from cobalt and turquoise to cherry red, mossy green, and tawny brown. These emotive, expressive works continue the artist’s explorations into memory while considering the relationships between internal and external worlds, as well as notions of beauty and hope. The established painter’s robust, abstract practice resonates profoundly in the present, demonstrating her masterful skill in conveying emotion through impassioned brushstrokes and vibrant color. Moritz is also represented by Marian Goodman Gallery.
