Art
Art Editor
“Artists We Follow” is a monthly series highlighting five artists we follow. Leveraging our art expertise and Artsy data, we identify which artists have made an impact in the past month through new gallery showings, exhibitions, auctions, art fairs, or fresh work on Artsy.
Born in Belgium in 1990. Lives and works in Genk, Belgium.
For her current solo exhibition with Kalil | Belgian artist Stevie Dix focuses on classic Surrealist themes of the body and cosmic landscapes in minimalist multi-panel works, which often feature unusual Rectangular forms are connected together. The silhouettes of faces and otherworldly landscapes recur throughout these tumultuous works, rendered in oil mixed with an impasto of homemade beeswax (more wax is used to treat her canvases). Dix limited her palette to mostly somber tones, with occasional flashes of color—e.g. lucid dream (2024), three fleshy abstract canvases with flashes of crimson and magenta. “Given some of the themes of this piece, about the inner workings of the human body, as well as…outer experiences, it’s a color that could symbolize both,” the artist explained in an Instagram post.
Although this is her first solo exhibition with Kalil | Gebauer, held at the gallery’s Madrid space, Dix has exhibited extensively with Taste Gallery internationally. The artist has had solo exhibitions at galleries such as L21 Gallery in Barcelona, The Journal Gallery in New York and Hannah Barry Gallery in London. Dix has also held The Hole exhibition in New York and the Steve Turner exhibition in Los Angeles, and her work has been acquired by the Portland Art Museum in Maine.
——Josie Thaddeus Johns
Born 1995 in Lagos. Lives and works in Lagos.
Initially focusing on creating hyper-realistic pencil drawings, Ayotunde Ojo turned to figurative painting during the COVID-19 pandemic, inspired by his daily life in isolation while he began a full-time career as a studio artist.
His current practice often features blurred edges and scattered forms, giving these domestic scenes—often depicting black people hanging out in their homes—a dreamlike or nostalgic quality. This creative evolution took root during his residency at the Southern Guilds in Cape Town last year. The South African Gallery is now hosting his first solo exhibition, “These Four Walls”, which will run until February 27, 2025. Untitled (self-portrait) (2024), depicts a man sitting at a kitchen table with partially obscured objects painted in pastel colors to create a hazy effect. Reflecting on his work on Instagram, Ojo wrote: “I wanted to convey a feeling, not precision.”
Ojo received a degree in general arts from Yaba Institute of Technology in 2015, followed by a degree in graphic design in 2018. After quitting his job at an advertising agency, he worked for Rele, MARUANI MERCIER GALLERY, kó and Harper Publishing, among others.
——Maxwell Raab
Born 1995 in Labadie, Ghana. Lives and works in Accra.
Kwaku Yaro’s mixed media portraits are made from a range of vibrant materials and patterned fabrics, merging the past and present into detailed figurative works that explore community and memory. Yaro applies traditional pointillism techniques to his large-scale works, developing a unique visual language. His work is currently on display in the solo exhibition “A Night in Paris with Lariba” at SEPTIEME Gallery, which represents him.
Materiality is at the core of Yaro’s practice, with the artist incorporating recycled and repurposed materials into his work. Ayele and Ayoke (2022), for example, depicts two young women posing against a richly decorated backdrop, their clothes patchworked from woven nylon and burlap. Ghana’s iconic plaid handbag is reimagined as a dress, blending heritage and street style. These recycled materials invite viewers to consider the potential of everyday objects.
Yaro is a self-taught artist and a member of the African art collective Artemartis. His work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions at Rele, Chilli Art Projects, Gallery 1957, Efiɛ Gallery, Citronne Gallery, The Cowrie Culture and SEPTIEME Gallery.
——Adeola Gay
Born in Jiangyin, China, in 1998. Lives and works in Brooklyn.
Wu Xiangjie’s canvases are filled with details, many focused on a single object or scene: a neighboring house seen through a window at dusk, origami cranes on the grass, a figure holding a bowl, steam rising against a gray background.
After studying ceramic glazes, Wu mixed her oil paints dry and applied wet layers over them, creating a matte finish that added weight and texture to the work. She uses deep, muted colors to create hazy images and a sense of time passing. For example, in moonlight (2023), she depicts a small tree with two forked branches, their soft, fibrous interiors glowing in the dark.
Wu conceptualizes her work as a series, comparing individual paintings to lines from poems. Currently, two such series are on display in New York, a group show at Brooklyn gallery Eleventh Hour Art and a two-person show with Mason Hunt at Tribeca’s 1969 Gallery.
Wu Xiangjie received his MFA from Pratt Institute. She has held group exhibitions at Cinema Supply in New York and Tutu Gallery in New York. She has had solo exhibitions at the College of Art Museum in Wooster, Ohio, and Marvin Gardens, New York, and was recently nominated for the Rema Holt Mann Foundation’s 2024 Emerging Artist Award.
——Isabelle businesswoman
Born in Liège, Belgium, 1972. Lives and works in Brussels.
Belgian artist Benoit Platéus’s broad practice spans painting, collage, sculpture and photography, although he focuses on abstract and conceptual issues within these media. In a past series presented at the BARBÉ Ghent 2020 group exhibition, Platéus presents sculptures of polyurethane resin tanks filled with photographic developer, a reference to these aging production methods of image-making.
In the current exhibition “Coriums” at the Meesen Gallery in Brussels, the artist presents a series of new works that question the “skin” of painting. References to nature abound, such as jagged brushstrokes snow algae (2024), via fungal clusters scout oyster (2024), all presented in dense color.
Platéus graduated from the ERG School of Graphic Studies in Brussels in 1998 and has since participated in extensive exhibitions. His works have been exhibited at institutions such as the Palais de Tokyo in Paris and the Art Sonje Center in Seoul, and are collected by the National Foundation for Contemporary Art in France and the Ixelles Museum in Belgium. The artist had another solo show earlier this year with Berthold Pott in Cologne and has exhibited with leading galleries such as Karma and Almine Rech.
——Arun Kakkar
