Find out how these young painters are updating their medium

Fresh paint: seven emerging artists to discover in the Nova and Positions sectors

登入並訂閱巴塞爾藝術展專題故事

Throughout the millennia, artists have continuously sought to challenge the nature of painting. Innovation hasn't stopped: Here are seven artists relentlessly testing the limits, opportunities, and traditions of the medium – all of whom you can discover at Art Basel Miami Beach this week. <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/44556/Didier-William" target="_blank">Didier William</a>&nbsp;(b. 1983, Port-au-Prince, Haïti) <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1122/James-Fuentes" target="_blank">James Fuentes</a>, New York City,&nbsp;Nova sector, booth N4 Didier William creates evocative pictures half-way between figuration and abstraction. Working with an array of media including paper, charcoal, and stucco, the Haitian American painter explores how memories travel through generations and geographies. They crop up in his work through graphic elements interwoven with color fields and chimerical figures, which conjure up speculative mindscapes. In Miami Beach, William will present Vertieres (2019), an epic work inspired by the namesake battle that led to the independence of Haiti from France in 1803.

<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/23973/Astrid-Svangren" target="_blank">Astrid Svangren</a>&nbsp;(b. 1972, Gothenburg, Sweden) <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/2605/Christian-Andersen" target="_blank">Christian Andersen</a>, Copenhagen, Positions sector, booth P11 Svangren’s compositions turn painting into a multidimensional experience. The Swedish artist takes the different elements constituting the medium (paint, surface, canvas, stretcher bars) and rearranges them in space. The poetic environments resulting from that process are reminiscent of both conceptual art and stripped-down domestic spaces. In Miami Beach, the artist will present one of these immersive works, inspired by the teachings and rules of Shaker culture.

<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/49084/Amoako-Boafo" target="_blank">Amoako Boafo</a>&nbsp;(b. Accra, Ghana) <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/2239/Mariane-Ibrahim-Gallery" target="_blank">Mariane Ibrahim Gallery</a>, Chicago, Nova sector, booth N5 Amoako Boafo is best-known as a portraitist. With an energetic brushstroke, the Ghanaian-born, Vienna-based artist depicts friends and acquaintances, often placed on a monochrome background. Boafo’s practice pertains to a long tradition – the oeuvres of Amy Sherald,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/10580/Barkley-L-Hendricks" target="_blank">Barkley L. Hendricks</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/9857/Alice-Neel" target="_blank">Alice Neel</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/11446/Egon-Schiele" target="_blank">Egon Schiele</a> come to mind. But this lineage does not dilute the punch of his paintings – quite the opposite, his distinctive style is enriched by these influences. Boafo will show new work in Miami Beach, conceived especially for the fair.&nbsp;

<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/9461/Wu-Chen" target="_blank">Wu Chen</a>&nbsp;(b. 1983, Zhengzhou, China) <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1400/Magician-Space" target="_blank">Magician Space</a>, Beijing, Positions sector, booth P2 A joyful iconoclasm transpires from the paintings of Chinese artist Wu Chen. Wu paints easily recognizable motives and figures, which he then distorts and places in unexpected environments. In doing so, the artist aims to address the excessive importance we attribute to symbols and images. His Miami Beach project will build on a fictional dialogue between himself and Henri Matisse, pondering on the value of artistic identity and production.

<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/6992/VALIE-EXPORT" target="_blank">VALIE EXPORT </a>SYNTAGMA, 1983 Presented by Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg, Paris, and London <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/6992/VALIE-EXPORT" target="_blank">The Austrian trailblazer</a>’s oeuvre remains highly influential, even beyond the topical corsets in which she is often enclosed. It is therefore particularly exciting to see her featured in this year’s Unlimited, where Thaddaeus Ropac will present her work SYNTAGMA (1983). The work revolves around a woman and her seemingly coincidental encounters with her doppelgänger, whom she witnesses through mirrors, on photographs, and on the street. EXPORT achieves the effect via, for the time, innovative filming techniques (attaching the camera to window levers or door handles, for example) and the use of split screen. The central idea of the work is perhaps best explained by EXPORT herself: ‘On the one hand this body is at the center of my world and on the other it is the object in the world of others.’ It is this duality, and the absence of objectivity when women are being looked at that load the piece with a very contemporary urgency, thirty five years after it was originally created.

Aaron Fowler (b. 1988, St. Louis, US) <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/2925/M-B" target="_blank">M+B</a>, Los Angeles, Positions sector, booth P9 LA-based artist Aaron Fowler draws on his personal story to form impressive hybrids of painting and sculpture. A striking combination of exuberance and grit characterizes his works, many of which incorporate discarded materials Fowler sources from his immediate surroundings. The artist focuses on the Black experience, presenting, he explains, a ‘nuanced approach to reading&nbsp;narratives of blackness.’ In Miami Beach, Fowler will present a brand-new wall work exploring community, salvation, and transformation.

Discover more&nbsp;galleries participating in this year’s Nova and Positions sectors at&nbsp;Art Basel Miami Beach&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/galleries?atozLetter=all&amp;sectorIds=-9%2C-11&amp;showIds=851&amp;sortBy=sortingName" target="_blank">here</a>.Top image:&nbsp;Amoako Boafo,&nbsp;Cobalt Blue Earring (detail), 2019, via Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, Chicago.

title_style_3

View selected works by Wu Chen presented at Art Basel.

Wu Chen

View selected works by Amoako Boafo presented at Art Basel.

Amoako Boafo

View selected works by Didier William presented at Art Basel.

Didier William

不論是虛擬實境還是全新的肖像畫，他們為21世紀的素材注入新鮮元素

Welcome,

Fresh paint: seven emerging artists to discover in the Nova and Positions sectors

Find out how these young painters are updating their medium

Discover more related content below: