5 Artists On Our Radar In April 2026 Artsy

(MENAFN- USA Art News) Three painters are using very different subjects to ask a similar question: how does a painting hold experience without flattening it?

A monthly series tracking artists who made an impression in the past month has singled out Sylvia Fernández, Linus Borgo, and Christian Franzen, each of whom is presenting a solo exhibition that turns a personal visual language into something more expansive. Their work moves from ecology to embodiment to landscape, but all three rely on close observation and a strong sense of atmosphere.

Peruvian artist Sylvia Fernández (b. 1978), who lives and works in Lima, is on view at David B. Smith Gallery in Denver with“The Illusion of Paradise,” through April 18, 2026. Fernández's paintings focus on the natural world at close range: rain on leaves, drooping stems, and dense growth rendered with a slightly surreal clarity. In works such as“Belong to Nature I” and“Midnight flower,” the landscape feels alive but also vulnerable, as if beauty and decay were inseparable.

Linus Borgo (b. 1995), born in Stamford, Connecticut and based in New York City, is showing“Into the Blue Again” at Yossi Milo Gallery through April 25, 2026. Borgo's practice is shaped by a near-death electrical accident at age 18, which led to the amputation of his left hand, as well as his experience as a transgender man. Those biographical facts are not treated as background alone; they are embedded in the work's structure. In“Cavity Sam,” a self-portrait based on the board game“Operation,” the body is rendered as both subject and site of inquiry, while quieter paintings such as“The Impossibility of Unlearning” use staging and light to suggest emotional strain rather than declare it outright.

Christian Franzen (b. 1994), who lives and works in Los Angeles, is presenting his debut New York solo show,“SHIFTY,” at Uffner & Liu through May 9, 2026. Franzen builds his paintings from an archive of his own photographs, many of them taken in Southern California and centered on the Pacific Ocean's shifting reflections. The result is a body of work that treats light not as backdrop, but as the main event.

Together, these exhibitions suggest a broader current in contemporary painting: a renewed interest in the body, the natural world, and the unstable conditions that shape how both are seen.

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