Two exciting young painters, Joseph Yaeger and Alicia Reyes McNamara, currently have solo exhibitions in London at Project Native Informant and Niru Ratnam respectively.
Both artists studied in the U.K., but take very different approaches to figurative painting. Yaeger uses watercolour on gessoed canvas to create images gleaned from fleeting memories, often incorporating reflections, doubling, or unconventional close-ups.
McNamara's work is centred around Mexican and Irish mythology, specifically water myths and often the female figures within these.
The unique sense of depth and perspective achieved through the brilliant use of colour by Belgium-born artist Francis Alÿs is what we particularly love about this painting.
Representing Belgium at the 2022 Venice Biennale, Mexico-based artist Francis Alÿs opened his first show in David Zwirner's Paris gallery on 27 May, presenting an intriguing and moving collection of observational works.
Based on his study of border regions experiencing socio-political conflict, his paintings take viewers to Jerusalem, the Turkish-Armenian border, and the Panama Canal Zone, to name but a few.
There's a lot to celebrate in London this month with the re-opening of the Royal Academy of Arts and a stream of other top art institutions post-lockdown.
The Royal Academy of Arts opens with Michael Armitage's ground-breaking exhibition, Paradise Edict, showcasing an extraordinary group of 15 Goya-esque works, which showed at Munich's Haus der Kunst last year.
Rendered on Ugandan lubugo cloth, The Chicken Thief draws on all corners of Armitage's life, from his upbringing in Nairobi and his education at London's Slade School of Art, to his return to the landscapes, politics, and visual narratives of Kenya, where he keeps a studio.
We really enjoyed reading Ocula Magazine Associate Editor Tessa Moldan's Insight into Alberto Biasi's practice.
The artist's kinetic, illusory works placed him at the forefront of the post-war Italian art scene. The Visibility of the Invisible at M77 in Milan traces the artist's 60-year career, from his interest in art and science as a young boy in the 1940s growing up in Padua to spearheading Gruppo N in the 1960s.
Traversing physical and digital realms, Samson Young's latest sculpture DAO35 is part of a larger exploration into Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching—a 6th century BC classical Taoist text.
Chapters from the text are run through the sculpture's algorithmic framework, in turn producing an output of text, or 'translation', which is both 3D-printed as well as sent in the form of call to Galerie Gisela Capitain in Cologne. Pretty cool!
The Hong Kong-based artist is the winner of both the prestigious 2015 BMW Art Journey Prize and the inaugural Sigg Prize in 2020, established in 2018 by Hong Kong's M+ museum.
Ocula Magazine spoke to the artist in 2017, in the wake of the artist's solo project at the 57th Venice Biennale in Hong Kong. The artist's exhibition at Capitain Petzel in Berlin runs until 19 June.
Supernatural figures conjured from Tomoo Gokita's imagination form the subject of the Tokyo-based artist's solo exhibition Fresh at Blum & Poe's Los Angeles space, running until 26 June.
Greyscale works have formed the basis of Gokita's oeuvre over the last decade, however this new series of paintings sees a renewed exploration into sultry pastel colours portraying dreamlike figures with a similar contortion employed by that of the Surrealists.
Picasso, Mondrian, Krasner, and Kelly's works are some our favourites that went up for auction at Christie's 20th Century Evening Sale on 13 May.
Pablo Picasso, Femme assise près d'une fenêtre (Marie-Thérèse) (1932). Oil on canvas. 144.78 x 111.76 cm.
Piet Mondrian, Composition: No II, With Yellow, Red and Blue (1927). Oil on canvas. 48.26 x 35.56 cm.
Lee Krasner, Untitled (1962). Oil on canvas. 162.56 x 147.32 cm. Estimate USD 5,000,000-7,000,000.
Ellsworth Kelly, Medium Blue Panel (1986). Oil on shaped canvas. 210.2 x 262.9 cm. Estimate USD 3,800,000 - 5,000,000.
After the historic inaugural NFT sales of works by the digital artists Beeple and Pak at Christie's and Sotheby's respectively, we are beginning to see auction houses adapting to the increased fervour surrounding cryptocurrency as a form of payment and digital arts appeal as the NFT market has emerged.
While cryptocurrency was accepted by Sotheby's for their NFT sale, Banksy's _Love is in the Air _is the first physical work to be offered at an auction house in exchange for cryptocurrency; specifically bitcoin and ethereum.
Read Sam Gaskin's recent coverage on the sale here.
At eight feet tall, Receiver by Huma Bhabha is an imposing and fabulously evocative sculpture, perfectly embodying the artist's reinterpretation of relics and monuments of the ancient world.
Her sublime sculptures look to reimagine the power historically attributed to monuments, placing works such as Receiver in the realm of what we understand as counter-monuments.
Facing Giants, Huma Bhabha's solo show at Salon 94's 89th Street space in New York runs until 26 June.
Ocula Advisory select their favourites from Christie's 21st Century Evening Sale in New York on 11 May.
Alex Da Corte, Night Vision (2018). Neon, house paint, vinyl siding, laminate, plywood, epoxy clay, and hardware. 182.9 x 182.9 x 15.2 cm. Estimate USD 60,000 - USD 80,000.
Mickalene Thomas, Racquel Reclining Wearing Purple Jumpsuit (2016). Oil, acrylic, silkscreen, rhinestones, faux pearls, glitter, graphite and flock on wood panel, in two parts. 243.8 x 365.8 cm. Estimate USD 400,000 - USD 600,000.
Sigmar Polke, Ohne Titel (Bunnies) (2000). Acrylic on paper. 200 x 150 cm. Estimate USD 1,000,000 - USD 1,500,000.
In anticipation of next week's Sotheby's Contemporary Art Evening sale on 12 May, we take a look at some of the top works up for auction:
Cy Twombly, Untitled (Rome) (1970). Oil-based house paint and wax crayon on canvas. 154.9 x 194.9 cm. Estimate USD 35,000,000 - 45,000,000.
Keith Haring, Untitled (1986). Acrylic on canvas. 152.4 x 152.4 cm. Estimate USD 4,000,000 - 6,000,000.
Robert Colescott, George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware: Page from an American History Textbook (1975). Acrylic on canvas. 199.4 x 294.6 cm. Estimate USD 9,000,000 - 12,000,000.
