Artists on the Rise: The Ones to Watch in 2019

Nothing can make a house feel like home more than a personal and beautiful display of art. In all its forms, decorative art can bring complexity, emotions and expressiveness to any interior.

Let’s face it, the world of art is a constantly changing entity. So while many can stick by their favourite artists like glue (we applaud loyalty), it can also be exciting to take a look at the new kids on the block and open up new creative possibilities.

In response to this, we’ve searched high and low to give you a heads up on the top artists to watch in 2019.

Derek Fordjour

There’s little doubt that Brooklyn-based artist, Derek Fordjour, is poised for a breakout year. His multi-layered work explores depictions of issues in American culture, in particular race and identity.
Favouring vibrant painting on layered cardboard and paper, his work has a three-dimensional quality that makes a powerful visual impact. He wowed gallery-goers in December 2018 at an Art Basel Miami Beach exhibition and with more lined up around the globe in 2019 he’s set to make a statement this year.

Bridget Riley

Ok, Bridget’s been around for a while...87 years in fact. But some could argue the British artist never quite had the acclamation she deserves, until perhaps now.

Her style of painting is known as Op Art - which is essentially putting colours, shapes and patterns together in clever ways to create an optical illusion of movement.

Bridget’s art celebrates a connection with nature, heavily influenced by impressions of light and movement on the human eye. Her work explores intricacies such as the reflection of light on rippling water, or light passing through leaves.

In 2019, there are big exhibitions planned spanning the whole of her 70 years in practice, planned by The Hayward Gallery and the National Galleries of Scotland.

Cassi Namoda

The Mozambique-born, L.A. based painter has been stirring the art world up lately. The epitome of the modern creative woman, her work - a collection of acrylics on canvas and watercolors on paper – is honest, raw and depict perfectly imperfect shapes and figures, that echo a still of a film you’ve seen before.

Namoda’s upcoming exhibition in mid-2019 in LA is titled “The Day a Monkey’s Destined to Die All Trees Become Slippery”, which she says means there’s no escaping one’s fate.

Paul Zizka

Who isn’t fascinated by the Northern Lights? Paul Zizka is an award-winning landscape and adventure photographer, although he undoubtedly favours the snowier and colder climates.

Breathtaking images of snowy alps, caves of ice and the breathtaking northern lights, this is landscape photography at its best that you can’t help but be absorbed into.

And with an awe-inspiring collection to choose from, you’ll be spoilt for choice.

Vaughn Spann

Raised in New Jersey, Vaughn Spann grew up confused that the drawings he created to depict life were so wildly different from those in his art history schoolbooks. After enrolling in Yale’s M.F.A program, he set out to paint ‘what he knew’, exploring the contemporary realities of life - both figuratively and symbolically.

His work is abstract and uses a combination of canvas, silk, paper, and terrycloth, which he stitches together with an industrial sewing machine

Feeling inspired? Us too.

And in the words of Romero Britto, ‘Art is too important not to share’.

- all images belong to their respective owners -