(MENAFN- USA Art News) Whether looking for a specific artist's work, browsing gallery exhibitions, or searching for art from a particular movement, the artnet gallery Network is the leading resource for exploring all things art. With thousands of artists and galleries from around the world included in our network, you can find exactly what you're looking for-or discover something new-from your own home or office.
As we do every month, we've gathered five artists that especially piqued our interest, and whose work we plan on following. For April's roundup, the artists are represented by galleries from Shanghai to Miami and each have their own interesting story. And until our next roundup comes out next month, be sure to take a look around on your own at the Artnet Gallery Network and see what the art world currently has on offer.
ronald machatuta at Almine Rech, Shanghai
Ronald Muchatuta, (2022). Courtesy of Almine Rech.
Originally from Zimbabwe, South Africa-based artist Ronald Machatuta consistently draws inspiration from his own history as well as contemporary issues within present history at large, ranging from diasporic identity, post-colonialism, and discrimination. His most recent body of work engages with interconnected narratives and psychologies, particularly as they pertain to migration and its effect both on the individual and communities at large. Currently the subject of a solo show at Almine Rech, Shanghai, Machatuta's work is rooted in figuration, with bright colors and overlayed images conveying the complexity of ideas around belonging, nostalgia, and memory-which can be understood both through a deeply personal as well as macroscopic lens.
xi li at Latitude, New York
Xi Li, (2022). Courtesy of Latitude Gallery.
Based in the city of New York, Chinese American artist Xi Li explores personal and collective memory-and has a talent for homing in on where they specifically overlap or deviate. Focusing on how varying perceptions of different histories can generate fictitious realities or effect lived realities, Xi Li creates works that straddle conceptions of real and imagined spaces. Her work offers an element of the uncanny, employing modes of artistic“construction, simulation, and intervention” to create vignettes that are simultaneously recognizable yet decidedly foreign. Expected to graduate from the Yale University MFA program this year, Xi Li's work has already been exhibited internationally.
juancarlos rlora at ArtToSaveLives, Miami
Juancarlos Rlora, (2022). Courtesy of ArtToSaveLives Contemporary.
Represented by ArtToSaveLives Contemporary, a Florida-based gallery that has a mission of supporting animal rescue through art, JanCarlos rLora has a deeply imaginative practice that centers on alternate realities and storytelling. Often working within expansive series based on his own storylines, rLorna's work on the whole cannot be contained within a single distinct style. His 2022 work synthesizes ideas of space travel with the mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle, with the work conceptualizing the latter as a portal to as of yet unvisitable portions of the cosmos. rLorna says of the piece,“I wanted to capture the exact moment when planetary gravity begins to turn off, thus making the illusion as if the viewer is actively about to cross through.”
mak2 at Peres Projects, Berlin
Mak2 (Mak Ying Tung 2), (2022). Courtesy of Peres Projects.
Currently the subject of their debut solo exhibition with Peres Projects,“Mak2: Love Pool,” Mak Ying Tung, known as Mak2, is a conceptual artist based in Hong Kong. Their artistic practice explores subjects ranging from philosophy and art history to the impact of technology and the web through a multidisciplinary approach. Working across painting, sculpture and installation, Mak2's work depicts fanciful and elaborate alternate worlds that merge conceptual reality with lived reality. In the present exhibition, much of the work on view are triptychs that illustrate lovers in various states of existence-including sometimes obscured by pixelation. Though humorous and whimsical, there is also a deeply emotional and serious resonance that can be felt underpinning each work.
eva yurková at Galerie Ernst Hilger, Vienna
Eva Yurková, (2023). Courtesy of Galerie Ernst Hilger.
Czech-born, Vienna-based artist Eva Yurková has a unique artistic style that centers on the practice and aesthetics of printmakin-and specifically woodcuts. Though also working with painting, ceramics, and installation, even within the realm of these other mediums, the tenants of woodcut prints in her work are apparent. Taking inspiration from the way wood is removed and cut into to create a block to print from, Yurková's compositions employ a similar logic. Building upon fields of color and layering elements, her work evokes reliefs and convey a distinct visual dimensionality. Her present show with Galerie Ernst Hilger,“Look Me in the Eyes, Baby,” features a series of figurative paper collage works that evoke a similar printmaking style and thematically engage with ideas around the female body and its perception.