US Graduates: Five Artists to Watch
Looking across some of the top art schools in the United States, including School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Yale School of Art, California Institute of the Arts, and Rhode Island School of Design, the Ocula Advisory team select a handful of artists whose work caught their attention from this year's graduate exhibitions.
Ish Lipman, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Rolling hills, vast horizons, and strange architectural structures—all rendered in layers of vibrantly toned paint—make up Ish Lipman's psychologically intriguing vistas.
In Lipman's paintings, exterior and interior worlds collide, emphasising the constant flux of existence. Small figures are placed in each frame, journeying their dreamlike landscapes.
Born in San Francisco and raised in Los Angeles, Ish Lipman attended both the University of California Santa Cruz and the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, before receiving his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
In September, a solo exhibition of Lipman's work will open at Praz Delavallade in Los Angeles, followed by Harper's in New York City in January 2023.
Brett Ginsburg, Yale School of Art
Kansas City-born artist Brett Ginsburg has forged a painting and sculptural practice focused on the textures of the built environment.
Ginsburg translates the marks and gestures he finds on walls and streets in the city into layers of acrylic on burlap. The result is an interplay between hard-edged forms and organic, bubbling textures.
Prior to his MFA at Yale School of Art, Ginsburg attended the Kansas City Art Institute, receiving his BFA in 2013. Ginsburg's work has been included in exhibitions at Jeffrey Deitch, New York; Green Hall Gallery, New Haven; and the Museum of Arts and Design, New York.
athena quispe, Yale School of Art
athena quispe's chimerical sculptural paintings and interactive installations have a romantic quality to them.
Their poeticism is emphasised by the materials that quispe uses, which are often unconventional. Featured in this piece, titled Psychic Warp (2022), is torched oak, incense, cochineal, ink, steel, and bodily fluids.
Prior to her MFA at Yale School of Art, quispe attended the University of California, Los Angeles, receiving her BA in 2020.
Jialin Ren, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Sitting somewhere between familiarity and strangeness, Jialin Ren's bold oil on canvas paintings stage surrealistic close-ups of natural forms.
By exaggerating ordinary or overlooked objects by distorting scale, Ren invites viewers to contemplate quotidian experiences of time and space.
Jialin Ren attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for both her BFA and MFA, and is scheduled to have her first gallery solo exhibition in Beijing at Common Place, opening 20 August.
Ineke Knudsen, Rhode Island School of Design
Ineke Knudsen's latest paintings reckon with her experience growing up in a strict denomination of the reformed Presbyterian church.
Moving away from the constructs of religious identity, she imagines a 'not-so-distant American future where Christians and conservatives have triggered the Apocalypse.' Bathed in otherworldly hues of red, green, and yellow, the young women in her paintings find themselves wandering the lost landscapes of America.
Main image: Ineke Knudsen, Apocalypse Painting Type 2 With Herd (2022). Oil on canvas. 121.92 x 182.88 cm. Courtesy the artist.