Cornelius Annor, Obiaa Beko, 2021. Courtesy of the artist and Venus over Manhattan, New York City.
Sam Falls, Daniel Boone National Forest, 2021. Courtesy of the artist and 303 Gallery, New York City.
Maria Lira Marques, Untitled, 2021. Courtesy of the artist and Gomide & Co, São Paulo.
Christine Wang, More Plastic, 2022. Courtesy of the artist and Night Gallery, Los Angeles.
Left: Yuko Murata, hum of the sea, 2021. Right: Yuko Murata, letter last night, 2021. Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Side 2, Tokyo.
Left: Marina Cruz, Safety Pins, 2021, Right: Marina Cruz, White Thread, Sign of Button, 2021. Courtesy of the artist and Mind Set Art Center, Taipei.
‘OVR:2021’ features new works that have emerged from the studios of artists from across the globe, with painters hailing from Ghana, Brazil, Japan, the Philippines, and the US among the must-sees. Ready to uncover is a broad range of pieces that are often concerned with memory and our relationship to the environment. Here are six painters to watch.
A former student of photography and physics, Sam Falls investigates how time and weather can transform images. His latest series, presented by 303 Gallery (New York City), was inspired by landscapes across the US, which he explored during a three-month road trip from Los Angeles to the Hudson Valley. Often working at night in national forests by the light of his head torch, Falls uses a process that involves placing found flowers and leaves on pieces of canvas or photographs and scattering the surface with dry pigment. Leaving the compositions outdoors, he allows the elements to gradually alter the work. What results are luminous paintings suffused with passages of velvety color and delicate imprints of plant matter. Appropriately titled ‘Preservation’ (2021), his series celebrates nature and reminds us of its fragility.
Maria Lira Marques’ lyrical works are populated with a menagerie of imaginary creatures. Rendered using raw mineral pigments that she binds together with glue, her paintings on paper and river pebbles have a powerful, primordial presence. Now in her seventies, Marques has a long history with ceramics that began during her childhood, when she would watch her mother sculpt nativity scenes with clay collected from a nearby riverbank. In the 1990s, Marques began using natural pigments to paint her ‘Bichos do Sertão’ series of fictional animals, the works for which she is now best known. Over time she has developed a graphic language of simple, flattened forms that she places within richly textured backgrounds. Presented by Gomide & Co (São Paulo), the works on view in ‘OVR:2021’ are inspired by the sertão – the sun-scorched scrublands in northeast Brazil where the artist grew up.
Christine Wang’s scathing meme paintings, on show in Night Gallery’s (Los Angeles) viewing room, capture the zeitgeist like few others. They criticize society’s growing selfishness, hypocrisy, and sense of division. While we typically scroll quickly through memes on social media, her painted renditions of these quintessentially contemporary images force us to stop and think. Emblazoned with caustic text, Wang’s works prompt the viewer to reflect on issues such as celebrity privilege, white supremacy, and the climate crisis. She also draws on more personal subjects, including social fears, identity, and mental health. Often containing dark humor and first-person statements, her paintings are highly relatable and impactful.
Accra-based artist Cornelius Annor, presented by Venus Over Manhattan (New York City), paints deeply personal portraits and domestic scenes, upon which he collages and imprints Ghanaian textiles sourced from the women in his family. Annor transfers patterns from these printed fabrics onto his canvases, leaving only faint impressions on the surface. He uses this technique to cover certain figures entirely, giving them a ghost-like appearance. They stand in contrast with the other protagonists of his canvases, rendered using sharp lines and even colors. By creating vibrant palimpsests using fabrics – often passed down through generations – Annor pays tribute to the personal and collective histories of families across Ghana.
Cute animals populate Yuko Murata’s small-scale paintings, presented by Gallery Side 2 (Tokyo). But even when ensconced in nature, they seem to be strangely out of place. Rendered using flat planes of color and a limited range of mid-tones, the creatures appear muted and almost melancholic. Murata drew inspiration from 18th-century Japanese painters who celebrated the natural world, influenced by Shinto and Buddhist spiritual concepts. However, the artist’s depiction of animals – sourced from commercialized postcards, travel brochures, and magazines – do away with the aestheticized symbolism of her artistic predecessors. Stripped of any sacred significance, these are wistful emblems of another time, when animals were revered and even considered manifestations of the divine.
In her photorealistic paintings, presented by Mind Set Art Center (Taipei), Marina Cruz painstakingly reproduces pieces of vintage clothing owned by members of her family. Her evocative canvases range from close-ups of crumpled, creased fabric to entire dresses laid flat. There is a tenderness to these works, in which the Filipino artist reveals even the minutest stain and finest thread. The items Cruz captures were hand-sewn and treasured in her family, part of a starkly different cycle compared with that of the anonymized fast-fashion garments we’re now so familiar with. By painting these pieces of clothing, the artist engages in an act of personal commemoration while also alluding to universal themes of vulnerability and imperfection.
Payal Uttam is an independent writer and editor who divides her time between Hong Kong and Singapore. She contributes to a range of publications including Artsy, The Art Newspaper, South China Morning Post and The Wall Street Journal.
