The artists to look out for in 2020
At the start of this new decade we take a look at five artists who are set to do big things in 2020
The artists set to shake up 2020
As a new decade starts, we begin to speculate about what will happen in the next ten years. There are no answers here, but we can give you a flavour of what the art world has in store, and, it turns out, the future is looking decidedly female. We've gathered together five promising artists living in London, or represented by London galleries, who are set to achieve big things.
Donna Huanca
Donna Huanca's installation at Frieze last year attracted the lion's share of the attention. Huanca, who is represented by Simon Lee Gallery, combines painting and performance to create a multi-sensory experience that includes ambient sounds and specially commissioned scents that evoke a hallucinatory experience. The human form and its place in nature is central to her work, and the painted bodies of her female performers become an extension of her free-standing works, blurring the boundaries between painting, sculpture and performance.
Michela Yearwood-Dan
Michela Yearwood-Dan's paintings are bold, luscious affairs, which mix themes of class, race and gender with motifs lifted from nature. The snippets of text that are inscribed into the thick paint of her canvases have a personal, romantic flavour, reminiscent of Tracey Emin's drawings. These works are vibrant products of the artist's life, her loves and hopes. It also helps that they are beautiful objects. Yearwood-Dan is represented by Tiwani Contemporary and her first solo show closes 18 Jan.
Marguerite Humeau
London-based French artist Marguerite Humeau is another interdisciplinary artist, who combines sculpture, sound and design to bring extinct creatures (and people) to life in fantastically surreal ways. In the past she has tried to recreate the voice of Cleopatra, and the sounds of a species of mammoth and she combines these audio works with theatrical installations. In December she even branched out into fashion and designed a spectral handbag for Dior. At last year's Venice Biennale, Humeau was short-listed for the Future Generations Art Prize and it is no exaggeration to say that the sky is the limit for this most original of artists.
France-Lise McGurn
France-Lise McGurn's exhibition for Tate Britain's Art Now series was a huge hit with Instagrammers. McGurn often works directly on walls, doors and ceilings to produce site specific works in which painted figures, rendered with little more than gestural outlines, overlap and interact. Talking to Studio International last year, she said: 'I think I've got a certain aesthetic that's rooted in 1990s Glasgow.' But this belies the elegance of her work, which is also very much of the now. You can catch her next exhibition at Simon Lee Gallery in Mayfair 24 January – 22 Feb.
Cherelle Sappleton
London based artist Cherelle Sappleton works in installation, collage and photography, sometimes combining all three into a single work. Taking the black female body as her starting point, Sappleton explores representation, agency and materiality with a fresh abstract aesthetic that we need more of in the capital. We have a feeling you'll be seeing a lot more of this artist's work in the coming years. For now, you can check out her solo show at Phoenix Gallery in Exeter 14 Feb – 12 April.
Donna Huanca
Donna Huanca's installation at Frieze last year attracted the lion's share of the attention. Huanca, who is represented by Simon Lee Gallery, combines painting and performance to create a multi-sensory experience that includes ambient sounds and specially commissioned scents that evoke a hallucinatory experience. The human form and its place in nature is central to her work, and the painted bodies of her female performers become an extension of her free-standing works, blurring the boundaries between painting, sculpture and performance.
Michela Yearwood-Dan
Michela Yearwood-Dan's paintings are bold, luscious affairs, which mix themes of class, race and gender with motifs lifted from nature. The snippets of text that are inscribed into the thick paint of her canvases have a personal, romantic flavour, reminiscent of Tracey Emin's drawings. These works are vibrant products of the artist's life, her loves and hopes. It also helps that they are beautiful objects. Yearwood-Dan is represented by Tiwani Contemporary and her first solo show closes 18 Jan.
Marguerite Humeau
London-based French artist Marguerite Humeau is another interdisciplinary artist, who combines sculpture, sound and design to bring extinct creatures (and people) to life in fantastically surreal ways. In the past she has tried to recreate the voice of Cleopatra, and the sounds of a species of mammoth and she combines these audio works with theatrical installations. In December she even branched out into fashion and designed a spectral handbag for Dior. At last year's Venice Biennale, Humeau was short-listed for the Future Generations Art Prize and it is no exaggeration to say that the sky is the limit for this most original of artists.
France-Lise McGurn
France-Lise McGurn's exhibition for Tate Britain's Art Now series was a huge hit with Instagrammers. McGurn often works directly on walls, doors and ceilings to produce site specific works in which painted figures, rendered with little more than gestural outlines, overlap and interact. Talking to Studio International last year, she said: 'I think I've got a certain aesthetic that's rooted in 1990s Glasgow.' But this belies the elegance of her work, which is also very much of the now. You can catch her next exhibition at Simon Lee Gallery in Mayfair 24 January – 22 Feb.
Cherelle Sappleton
London based artist Cherelle Sappleton works in installation, collage and photography, sometimes combining all three into a single work. Taking the black female body as her starting point, Sappleton explores representation, agency and materiality with a fresh abstract aesthetic that we need more of in the capital. We have a feeling you'll be seeing a lot more of this artist's work in the coming years. For now, you can check out her solo show at Phoenix Gallery in Exeter 14 Feb – 12 April.
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