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Figuring out how to buy art for your home — especially if you’re new to buying art to begin with — might seem a bit overwhelming. That’s why the experts at Saatchi Art want to make it easier for you to find new and up-and-coming artists worth watching.
This year’s list of Saatchi Art’s Rising Stars Of 2019 features new and emerging artists who just graduated from some of the top art schools in the U.S. and U.K.
The final list of 31 artists was hand-picked by Saatchi Art curators who considered the portfolios of hundreds of people at MFA and BFA shows. They took into account factors like the strength of the artist’s body of work and the originality of their portfolio, according to curator Monty Preston.
“[We’re] paying particular attention to the execution of each work and the ideas behind it,” Preston told HuffPost. “We are excited to find works that feel particularly relevant to contemporary issues — artists are like a barometer, responding to the world around them.”
“Artists are like a barometer, responding to the world around them.”
- Monty Preston, Saatchi Art Curator
This year’s list includes Caroline Jacobson from Chicago, whose use of human-dog hybrid figures grapples with the intersection of media culture, human behavior and capitalism. “Bred and molded for permanent innocence and dependency, dogs function both as extensions of their owners’ identities and as trophies used to signify status and wealth,” Jacobson wrote on her artist’s page.
Sean Winn from London is also featured on this year’s list for his otherworldly compositions. “In my compositions and installations, I use figures and spaces that dramatize the everyday inner emotions, that we, as human beings try to keep hidden behind closed doors or within a private setting,” Winn wrote on his artist’s page. “We all struggle with societal norms and get tangled within our thoughts of putting others before ourselves.”
The list emerging artists who work in a variety of mediums, styles and themes.
“One of our goals as we start the research for this project is not to have a preconceived notion of the kind of work we are looking for,” Preston said. “Reflecting on the final 31 artists we have chosen, I think the common thread is actually how unique each artist’s work is.”
You can browse Saatchi Art’s full list of the 31 emerging artists here, but below we’ve pulled together the top 10 to watch. Take a look:
