High Ambition: A Crop of Emerging Artists Descends in London
London is no stranger to the art scene, especially if you recall the edgy late 1990s into early aughts era that produced names like Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas, and Tracey Emin; the sexually-provocative artist whose work was shaped by her family experiences. These days, as gallerists revisit the visual landscape, just below, an emerging foursome of up-and-coming artists working in mediums from photography, painting, film and beyond.
Recalling a scene out of a stylized neo-noir coupled with a touch of that creepy David Lynchian factor, the artist Juno Calypso (b. 1989), who works alone, uses herself as a model in her photographs (she goes by the alter-ego name of “Joyce”). Long before the Barbie movie was en vogue, Calypso was employing her delicious, candy-pink photographs: suspenseful and staged scenes of kitchens and honeymoon hotels with heart-shaped bubble bathtubs. Looking at beauty, loneliness, love and aging – and often all four at once, calls to mind what isolating cultural experiences are like, especially in these current days. Timeless, mysterious and familiar, there’s a touch of 70s and 80s nostalgia, but like all good art, it could be anywhere and anytime.
Since 2009, visual artist Heather Apyepong has been working primarily in photography and performance arts. Focusing on themes of well-being and invisibility, her 2020 series, Wish You Were Here pays homage to Aida Overton Walker, an African American vaudeville performer known as the “Queen of the Cake-Walk” – a 19th-century dance craze performed by enslaved people who mocked their strutting slaveholders and fancy high society. Apyepong stars in the work as Walker, and is paying homage to the Black woman performer, in what she likes to describe as helping the artist reclaim the past, present, and future.
At first glance, Anita Showering (b. 1991) lush, large-scale canvas works might conjure up something familiar thanks to the recognizable shapes of figures and landscapes (mountains, rivers, and forests). With an equal sense of dread and hope; Showering largely leans on a muted palette of oranges, reds, and greens, and her work floats dreamily somewhere between allegory and abstraction (you’ll also see her love of late 19th-century European painting evident. “'My paintings try to explore how memory works through stacking lots of recollections on top of one another,” said Showering, who was educated at Slade School of Fine Art and who also enjoys listening to music when she’s creating.
Weaving surreal scenes with familiar objects like bowls of pasta, a wedge of cheese, and a martini glass, the artist Mary Stephenson (b.1989 ) uses humor coupled with darker nods to create tension in her expressed themes of mass consumption and excess. She also looks at mental health and the innate desire for humans to belong. Her earlier series, My Man (2017) looked at singledom and social “norms” around modern romance – as seen through her paint, clay, and paper “imaginary boyfriends” creations and elaborately staged fantasy dates. Graduating this coming year from the Royal Academy Schools in London, expect to keep your eyes peeled for Stephenson’s new and solo gallery inclusions.
