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 1987 in New Jersey. Lives and works in New York.
Welcome to the dinner party of your dreams, or maybe your nightmares. New York artist Sabrina Bockler paints aristocratic scenes and exquisitely ornate tablescapes that blend with the deep, soft textures of Dutch Golden Age still lifes. Yet amid all the ornate decoration—lobsters, shells, goblets, overflowing vases—are eerie, surreal details that give the piece an unsettling edge. Nude, bathing theme private detective (2024) was surreptitiously observed by a plant growing out eyeballs; cup Meanwhile, (2024) features a dead swan with two heads.
In preparation for “Shallow Water,” her first solo show with Los Angeles’ Richard Heller Gallery (on view through February 15), Bockler has set her sights on the Roman goddess Diana. In the myth, Diana transformed the hunter Actaeon into a stag after he broke into her bathroom. He was later killed by his own hounds. Bockler was inspired by the way Diana “violently protected her sacred space,” she wrote in her artist statement. Against the backdrop of ongoing debates over women’s bodily autonomy in the United States, Bockler’s work evokes the sanctity and sensitivity of women’s rights.
Bockler received a BFA from Parsons School of Design in 2011. She has previously had solo exhibitions at the Hashimoto Center for Contemporary Art in New York, The Brewery in London, and the Tulane Center for Contemporary Art in Montreal.
——Olivia Horne
Born 1986 in El Salvador. Lives and works in Los Angeles.
Emiliana Henriquez’s current exhibition “Warm Blue Velvet” at the Half Gallery annex space is an exploration of the commonalities between people. The Los Angeles-based artist was inspired by a recent trip to Egypt, where she was struck by the similarities in headdresses worn by women across faiths. These women, and the religious piety evoked by their covered hair, become the subjects of quiet three-tone portraits. Whether to tie a short knot at the nape of the neck, e.g. diamond (2024), or hanging all the way to the floor like this Things are getting worse (2024), Henriquez’s depiction of the hijab accentuates the tactility of the fabric and highlights its role as a hidden medium across cultures.
Henriquez sees the portraits she takes of others as a way to visualize a part of herself, as she explained in an interview at the Fountainhead Artist Residency in Miami, which she completed in September. In previous group exhibitions, including Half Gallery, Superposition, and Andrea Festa Fine Art, she has explored her experience as a Latina woman of color in monochromatic portraits. Henriquez has also had a solo exhibition at the Fortnight Institute in New York and a group exhibition with the FLAG Art Foundation.
——Josie Thaddeus Johns
Born in Bangkok in 1993. Live and work in Bangkok.
Juli Baker and Summer’s work offers a glimpse into her vibrant world, drawing inspiration from a range of influences including personal conversations and pop culture. (Her pen name is a reference to a character in the romantic comedy flip and 500 days of summer.) The Thai artist uses a variety of media, from acrylic paint to watercolor pencils and ceramics, employing vibrant brushstrokes and whimsical forms in his depictions of humans, flora and fauna.
At last month’s Access Bangkok art fair, the artist held a solo exhibition titled “Journal of the Nordic Lands” in collaboration with Bangkok’s SAC Gallery. The works on display include Picking berries, picking feelings, picking sunset (2024), an expressive portrait of a figure seemingly immersed in water. Like many of Julie Baker and Summer’s works, this piece features text written by the artist, emphasizing the importance of storytelling in her work. She also showcases playful ceramic sculptures shaped like snails and abstract forms that serve as candle holders, balancing decorative and functional features.
juli Baker and Summer studied fashion and textiles at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. Her work has been exhibited in galleries across Asia, including ART Is. Tokyo Gallery, River City Gallery Bangkok, Artemin Gallery, VS Gallery, Spiral Gallery and SAC Gallery Bangkok. She has also collaborated with brands including Nike, Lamy and Maison Kitsuné.
——Adeola Gay
Born in Philadelphia in 1936. Lives and works in Philadelphia.
During the 1960s, Elizabeth Osborne’s paintings focused on intimate interiors, nude figures, and still lifes. However, during visits to Manchester, Massachusetts in the 1960s and 1970s, she became fascinated by the flowing movement of water while painting. outdoor On a rocky beach. These travels led her to experiment with color and form, ultimately creating landscapes with bright, saturated colors. “It freed me a lot from color,” Osborne later explained.
Osborne’s radiant landscapes are currently on view in “Landscapes of the Mind’s Eye,” her second solo exhibition at Berry Campbell Gallery, which represents her in New York. The exhibition, which runs through February 1, features paintings and works on paper spanning more than half a century. an outstanding one, flame (2004), depicts rolling hills in fiery tones layered with tranquil blues and greens, simulating the natural movement of light across the horizon. Osborne brings the same fluidity and sheen to those rocky beaches, creating luminous impressions of a natural world filled with wonder.
A fixture on Philadelphia’s art scene, Osborne studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts before earning a BFA from the University of Pennsylvania in 1959. Osborne began exhibiting at Philadelphia’s Locks Gallery, which represented her for more than 40 years and had 17 solo shows, in 1972. Her work is included in the collections of the Delaware Art Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art, among others.
——Maxwell Raab
Born 1978 in Corvallis, Oregon. Lives and works in Los Angeles.
California-based artist Chris Trueman uses tools like palette knives, squeegees, and spray paint to build (and sometimes even scrape away) multiple layers of paint to create rhythmic contrasts in his vibrant, dynamic works . His work is both traditional and contemporary, drawing on the history of abstract painting and graffiti and referencing the physical and digital.
These contrasts are reflected in Trueman’s current solo exhibition, “The Future of the Present,” on view at Bentley Gallery in Phoenix, through January 25. In many works, the artist uses flat gradients of blue and green, reminiscent of a calm pool of water, or the cold glow of an idle monitor. Elsewhere, flecks of spray paint suggest the tension between chance and the artist’s deliberate movement, like the paint blobs used by Jackson Pollock. Influenced by the gestural tradition of Abstract Expressionism, Trueman believed that marks were a record of the artist’s presence. Yet on the same canvas that collects his active gestures, the artist also sands down the color into smooth, textureless areas—an act of erasure that hints at the difficulties of physical existence in today’s world.
Trueman received his BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2003 and his MFA from Claremont Graduate University in 2010. He has exhibited at the Lancaster Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, California; Winston Wächter Fine Art, Seattle; NAVA Contemporary; and elsewhere.
——Isabelle businesswoman
