Five Artists Debuting in London Galleries During Frieze

As the artworld readies itself for the flurry of Frieze Week (9–13 October 2024), leading galleries across London are rolling out the red carpet for extraordinary talent.

Notable among those debuting artists in the city are Gagosian, Sadie Coles HQ, Lisson Gallery, and Thaddaeus Ropac, along with Thomas Dane Gallery, which presents Magdalene Odundo‘s first solo exhibition in London in almost three decades.

Ocula Advisory takes a closer look at these artists and the work they’re bringing to the capital.

Yu Hong at Lisson Gallery

Yu Hong, one of China’s foremost painters, is long overdue her London debut. Her solo exhibition opens at Lisson Gallery’s Bell Street location, just down the road from The Regent’s Park, where Frieze takes place.

Born in Xi’an in 1966, Yu studied painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. Rejecting the Socialist Realist tradition that dominated art schools throughout the 1980s, she developed a style centred on individuality, through which to investigate the human condition.

For Islands of the Mind (27 September–9 November 2024), the Beijing- and New York-based artist presents nine new acrylic-on-canvas paintings exploring universal emotions.

In isolated, oneiric landscapes, stranded figures confront dramatic forces of nature—turbulent seas, crumbling lands, and smoke-filled skies. Some scenes are tense and foreboding, while others offer a moment of calm.

In discussing the exhibition, Yu highlights the personal nature of her work and the emotional experiences it conveys. She explains, ‘I’ve always been very interested in envisioning the inner landscape, using collective visual clues to depict these personal emotions.’

It’s exciting to see Yu’s work in London for the first time, given that her previous exhibitions have mostly been in Asia and America. She is also exhibiting at the Chiesetta della Misericordia in Venice with Another One Bites the Dust, organised by the Asian Art Initiative of the Guggenheim Museum, New York, on view until 24 November 2024.

Heemin Chung at Thaddaeus Ropac

It’s been a year since Thaddaeus Ropac announced their representation of Korean artist Heemin Chung, who recently created a series of miniature BMW Art Cars for Frieze Seoul 2024.

Based in Seoul, Chung earned her BFA in painting from Hongik University and her MFA from Korea National University of Arts. Her work explores how people navigate a tech-driven society, highlighting emotional disconnection through surface texture.

In UMBRA (8 October–20 November 2024), her first exhibition in the U.K., Chung presents new large-scale works on canvas that combine acrylic, oil, gel, and resin. These ethereal abstractions, built from translucent, membrane-like layers in muted tones, are strikingly tactile. They recall weathered walls or the urban decay of a city left to deteriorate.

Chung notes that her process often begins with ‘a very subtle and fleeting sensation, almost like a whisper that moves between the physical and the virtual ... It represents a shadow, an abyss, a longing for an unknown, and an imagination of the reality on the opposite side of the shadow.’

Her arrival in London underscores the growing cultural ties between the art scenes of Seoul and London, with both cities hosting major art fairs like Frieze. In the last few years, prominent London galleries such as Gagosian, Lehmann Maupin, and Thaddaeus Ropac have opened new spaces in Seoul, further strengthening this connection.

Anna Weyant at Gagosian

With her paintings regularly fetching soaring prices at auction, 29-year-old Canadian artist Anna Weyant, who earned her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design before studying at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, is firmly in the ascendant. Her still lifes and doll-like portraits, rendered in a soft palette, draw on the traditions of the Dutch Golden Age. Beneath their seemingly straightforward exteriors, these paintings explore the quirks of femininity and human nature.

For her exhibition at Gagosian’s 17–19 Davies Street location, Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolves? (8 October–20 December 2024), Weyant unveils six new oil paintings. Combining autobiographical elements with macabre humour in her signature polished style, these eerie works are shot through with an unsettling sense of solitude and isolation.

Primarily known for her shows in the U.S., with select exhibitions in Asia and Europe, this presentation gives U.K. audiences a chance to experience Weyant’s sought-after paintings first hand and to consider how they resonate within London’s art scene.

Yu Nishimura at Sadie Coles HQ

Sadie Coles HQ opens the autumn season with Yu Nishimura’s debut solo exhibition, Synopsis (8 October–9 November 2024) at the gallery’s Davies Street location.

Nishimura, originally from Kanagawa in Japan, is a graduate of Tama Art University in Tokyo. His works feature portraits of friends, family, and pets set against serene landscapes. Characterised by their detached, blank expressions, his subjects are rendered in a style reminiscent of anime.

Integrating photographic techniques into his painterly practice, he applies thin layers of oil paint, smearing and smudging it in places to achieve a translucent soft focus. This method creates depth of field, with some subjects fading into blurs while others remain defined. Certain works incorporate a double-exposure effect, layering two images into one composition for added complexity.

Sadie Coles HQ senior director John O’Doherty remarked, ‘There is a wistful mystery and allure in Nishimura’s painting. Whether it be a hushed landscape, a fleeting memory, or a floating enigmatic figure, the varied motifs in the work—and the careful, blurred brushstrokes he conjures to depict them—simultaneously evoke a sense of isolation and repose.’

Magdalene Odundo at Thomas Dane Gallery

While not technically a debut, Magdalene Odundo’s exhibition at Thomas Dane Gallery marks her return to London 26 years after her last solo show at Michael Hue-Williams Gallery in 1997.

The Nairobi-born artist has spent nearly 50 years creating ceramic vessels that hint at the curves of the female form. Raised in Kenya and India, she learned ancient firing and hand-building techniques at the Abuja Pottery Centre in Nigeria before studying at the Royal College of Art in London. Odundo employs a labour-intensive hand-coiling method, applying colloidal slip and burnishing the surfaces of her ceramics with stones, gourds, and other tools, rather than using glaze.

For her return to London, she brings recent hand-built clay vessels that are sensuous and smooth. These elegant objects balance strength with fragility, demonstrating both the material storytelling power of clay and the artist’s connection to her craft and cultural heritage.

Following her highly praised exhibition at Houghton Hall in Norfolk this summer, the show at Thomas Dane Gallery (9 October–14 December 2024) offers a rare opportunity to experience her latest work and revisit her artistic evolution. —[O]

Selected Artworks

Main image: Yu Hong, Metropolis Island (2024) (detail). Acrylic on canvas. 250 x 300 x 4.5 cm. © Yu Hong. Courtesy Lisson Gallery, Beijing/London/Los Angeles/New York/Shanghai.