5 Artists We’re Watching in July 2024

Artists We’re Watching is a monthly series spotlighting five artists we’re watching. Using our art expertise and Artsy data, we identify which artists have made an impact in the past month through new gallery representation, exhibitions, auctions, art fairs, or new works on Artsy.

Born in Berlin in 1987. Lives and works in Berlin.

In early summer, Paul Hutchinson, an emerging German-Irish photographer, received some well-deserved attention for his poetic images that explore issues of urban life and social mobility. Last month, Hutchinson’s work was featured at Art Basel at two galleries: Sies + Höke (whose booth was one of Artsy’s 10 favorites) and Knust Kunz Gallery Editions. This high-profile moment came on the heels of a solo show at Galerie Russi Klenner in Berlin and the publication of a sold-out monograph.

Hutchinson’s frequent subjects include strangers, street trash and flotsam, and architectural details from her travels. Schmetterlinge, yellow background (2019), the artist memorializes a butterfly hovering on a tripod—highlighting his keen eye for beauty in unusual places. Swinging between solemnity and hopefulness, Hutchinson’s photographs reflect the influence of German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans, to whom Hutchinson worked for many years as an assistant.

Hutchinson holds an MA in Photography from Central Saint Martins and a BA in Communication from the University of Fine Arts Berlin. In 2015 he was awarded the IBB Photography Award.

—Jordan Weierskamp

Born in Chrzanov, Poland in 1988. Lives and works in Gdynia, Poland.

Through Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette Katy Perry’s cover Young Dream Add a dash of Slavic folklore to the mix, and you get close to the alluring, ultra-feminine aesthetic of Monika Marchewka. The Polish artist’s paintings are filled with cotton-candy clouds, pearlescent shells, and shimmering bodies of water—the stuff of girlhood daydreams.

Despite the beautiful setting, Marchewka’s female characters seem unsettled, caught in surreal moments of transition or uncertainty. Mirror (2023) For example, a naked blue-haired woman gazes at her own reflection, only to find a void where her body should be. Marchewka’s women often cry, their tears adorning their faces like jewels.

Marchewka’s paintings often use the same subject matter, acting as storyboards—an approach that’s unsurprising given the artist’s background in film. She graduated from the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków and has worked as an animator on projects including the 2017 feature film Love Van Goghand then began painting full-time. This summer, her work was shown in a solo exhibition “In Between” at Monti8 in Latina, Italy, and in a group exhibition at LAMB in London. She has previously shown at galleries such as Tchotchke Gallery in New York and Artistellar in London.

—Olivia Horne

Born in Rome in 1995. Lives and works in New York.

Agnes Questionmark reveals the boundaries of identity, surveillance and the body in her various practices. In a corner of the main exhibition area of ​​this year’s Venice Biennale, she pulled the audience into a theatrical operating room where the boundaries between public and private became blurred. Cyber ​​teratology action (2024), depicts a pregnant transgender body adorned with alien-like tentacles under the harsh light of a surgical lamp. Its visceral setting highlights the invasive nature of medical and digital observation and critiques the scrutiny transgender people face.

Questionmark’s recent solo exhibition, “Unborn Patients,” at Berlin’s KÖNIG GALERIE explored similar themes of surveillance and control of non-normative bodies. In performances, silicone sculptures, and drawings of dragon-like beasts, the artist explored models of fluidity in the face of what she calls “failed biological paradigms.”

Questionmark, who graduated from Pratt Institute’s MFA program in 2024, has exhibited her work at the Centre d’Art Contemporain in Geneva, the MAXXI Museum in Rome, and the Gwangju Biennale. In addition to institutions, she has staged ongoing performance projects in locations such as Milan train stations and abandoned entertainment centers in London.

—Maxwell Raab

Born in Cartagena, Spain in 1993. Lives and works in Mexico City.

Spanish artist Kora Moya Rojo’s paintings are full of flowers in full bloom, which is very touching. The artist depicts flowers with bright hues and flowing, spherical beauty, and the flowers take on strange shapes. Twisted petal shapes bend and twist in her oils and watercolors, which also depict fleshy tropical fruits.

For her solo exhibition, “Ofrenda,” on view at DANIELA ELBAHARA in Mexico City until July 19, the artist elevates these scenes into large canvases, some of which are oval in shape. Another series of smaller works, displayed on mint-green, leaf-shaped altar stands, transforms the ritual of sacrifice (the English translation of the exhibition’s title) into a bright, modern rendition of surreal natural elements.

While this is her first solo exhibition in Mexico City, Rojo has exhibited internationally, including her first solo exhibition at Be Advisors in London in 2023, as well as multiple group exhibitions at Sens Gallery in Hong Kong and Annka Kultys in London. She received her MFA from the University of Fine Arts of Murcia, Spain.

—Josie Thaddeus Johns

Born in Saga Prefecture, Japan in 1997. Currently lives and works in Tokyo.

Inspired by the moment between vision and cognition, Asanoaga draws viewers into a liminal world where vision and perception are disconnected. Working on large canvases, the artist uses thin layers of oil, tempera, and wax to accumulate texture and evoke movement. These works—exhibited in a recent solo exhibition at Tokyo gallery KOSAKU KANECHIKA—feel disconnected from the physical world, as if Asanoaga’s abstract forms exist only behind a shimmering, translucent veil.