5 Emerging Artists Whose Colorful Works Stand Out in Artnet’s Gallery Network This Summer

At the Artnet Gallery Network, we make it our goal to discover new artists each and every month, searching through the thousands of talented artists on our website and selecting a few we find particularly intriguing right now.

While many galleries close their doors during these final weeks of August, some use the long days of summer to showcase the works of emerging creators. With the Artnet Gallery Network, you can discover them from the comfort of home (and air conditioning!). Keep an eye out for our monthly roundup of names to watch!

Georg Óskar at JD Malat Gallery, London

Berlin-based Icelandic artist Georg Óskar’s paintings are wry, yet genuine observations of daily life and the people and landscapes he encounters. His sense of levity offers an approachable way into dark, even obscene, subjects. Late last year London’s JD Malat Gallery presented the artist’s exhibition “Pain Thing,” whose title played on the act of painting and the resulting challenges involved in the process. These works were defined by a murky, somber palette that draws from the atmosphere of the Scandinavian landscape, while the artist’s raw, gestural brushstrokes further reflect a sense of isolation and distance from the larger world.  

Kay Gasei at Cicek Gallery, London

London-based mixed-media artist Kay Gasei creates captivating canvases filled with figures, often Black, in magical, mythical settings. His distinctive, stylized depictions recall classical and Egyptian iconography but address contemporary political and social realities and are imbued with a spontaneous irreverence that seems drawn from street art. Small details in Gasei’s compositions act like ciphers, too, engaging viewers in a playful game of symbolism. 

Harm Gerdes at Peres Projects, Berlin

Peres Projects recently closed its second solo exhibition of German artist Harm Gerdes, “Synthetic Spirits.” Gerdes’s approach to painting is at once process-based and experimental. The artist begins with spontaneous, hand-drawn sketches, which he then digitizes to refine before transferring them back to the canvas. From here, Gerdes pours paint mixtures onto the canvas, which he maneuvers through the pushes and pulls of gravity. Working with acrylic paints and a polyester canvas, Gerdes pushes back against the traditional, canonical medium, as well as his own training in oil painting. 

 

Theresa Kallrath at von fraunberg art gallery, Düsseldorf

The Swedish-German artist Theresa Kallrath creates bright artworks aswirl in color. These abstract compositions embrace chance, as the artist begins without preconceived notions of what will fill her canvases. A closer examination reveals that she consciously avoids including any tones of black, instead relying on other hues to imbue her works with a sense of optimism and cheer. Ideal for summer!

 

Katrien de Blauwer at Gallery Fifty One, Arles

Artist Katrien de Blauwer says of her practice, “Let’s say I’m a photographer without a camera. For me, cutting is comparable to clicking on the shutter release.” She cuts, rearranges, and colors photographs from the old magazines she collects, working less in a tradition of collage and in a process more akin to film editing. In this way, the artist can create intense narrative juxtapositions that are at once both ambiguously anonymous and intimate.