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10 Artists to Watch in 2025

Our curators have handpicked ten artists poised to shape the art world in the coming year. From reimagining the legacy of female craftsmanship to boldly challenging global power dynamics, these artists are redefining creativity and making waves. Discover the names to watch and the compelling themes driving their work as we enter a fresh chapter in contemporary art.

By Sophie Heatley | 13 Dec 2024

Meghan Spielman 

You may recognise textile artist Meghan Spielman from our collaboration with Soho Home, where her vibrant tapestries have adorned the walls of their studios, captivating collectors worldwide. Drawing inspiration from heirloom textile traditions, Spielman weaves subtle tributes to the legacy of female craftsmanship. 

10 Artists to Watch in 2025
Meghan Spielman in her studio

Her work echoes the rich history of American quilt and coverlet patterns, transforming them into a visual language that tells stories of time, place, and the hands that created them. With each piece, she rejuvenates this enduring art form, blending tradition with her own dynamic perspective.

10 Artists to Watch in 2025
All by Meghan Spielman: Prelude XIV | Prelude XV | Prelude XVI (Cotton, silk, mohair, chenille, 2024, 55 x 45 cm)

 

Lobo Velar de Irigoyen 

Argentine artist Lobo Velar de Irigoyen describes his practice as “a playful and abstract attempt to explore the intimacy of everyday life [to] pose and question communication problems and conflicts of interpretation.” His work seamlessly oscillates between collage, photography, and painting, creating a harmonious yet enigmatic fusion that demands attention. Each piece invites exploration and challenges the viewer, sparking the imagination to craft its own narrative. The story behind his works may remain elusive, but this ambiguity only deepens their allure, ensuring a mesmerising experience with every encounter.

 

10 Artists to Watch in 2025
Lobo Velar de Irigoyen in his studio

 

Simon Tatum 

Simon Tatum, an interdisciplinary artist from the Cayman Islands now based in Nashville, Tennessee, creates thought-provoking works that explore identity and perception. Drawing inspiration from W.E.B. Du Bois’s concept of double consciousness, Tatum transforms printed imagery—such as advertisements and documentary photographs—and finds objects into a distinctive visual language. 

10 Artists to Watch in 2025
Simon Tatum at the opening of Colonial Debris at Tern Gallery in February 2024

His art reflects his deep engagement with colonial histories, the complexities of tourism, and his personal journey as a mixed-race Caribbean man navigating societal expectations. Through his deconstruction and reconstruction of these elements, Tatum invites viewers to reconsider the narratives that shape cultural identity.

10 Artists to Watch in 2025
Colonial Debris, Shanty Town (Archival inkjet print on matte finish photo paper, 2022, 91 x 61 cm) Edition of 6 | Colonial Debris, Coolie Workhorse (Archival inkjet print on matte finish photo paper, 2023, 46 x 31 cm) Edition of 3

 

Nelson Ijakaa

Kenyan artist Nelson Ijakaa views art as more than a form of expression—it is a catalyst for societal transformation. Refusing to be confined by a single medium, his dynamic practice encompasses painting, photography, video montage, installation, and even augmented reality. Now working from a residency in Hamburg, Ijakaa remains steadfast in his mission to challenge power structures and amplify African voices through his thought-provoking creations.

 

10 Artists to Watch in 2025
Nelson Ijakaa at the Afriart Residency, 2024 | Courtesy of Afriart Gallery © Daniel Wanyina

 

Aline Gaiad

Brazilian artist Aline Gaiad creates playful and personal domestic scenes, drawing inspiration from everyday life. Her home and studio meld into a seamless creative haven, reflecting her artistic ethos. Influenced by the warmth and sophistication of her childhood home—where she was immersed in a family of avid collectors and artists—her work evokes a sense of nostalgia and charm. Delicate curtains, eclectic wallpapers, and whimsical figures populate Gaiad's quirky, dollhouse-like abodes, transforming ordinary spaces into richly imaginative, smile-inducing worlds.

 

10 Artists to Watch in 2025
Aline Gaiad in front of a selection of her interior paintings

 

Georgie McEwan

London-based Georgie McEwan works with painting and spatial design. Drawing influence from her architectural background, McEwan’s work entangles the familiar in poetic explorations that warp and play with the boundaries between architecture and art. Joyful abstractions of space, colour and pattern present an alternative way of looking at the world, where distorted dimensions and floating fragments transport us into unexpected landscapes of the imagination.

 

10 Artists to Watch in 2025
Georgie McEwan at her London solo show in April 2024

 

Alexander Grawoig

Thanks to his unique background and diverse influences, Alexander Grawoig transforms the mundane into the extraordinary, reflecting a deep engagement with both material and metaphysical themes. Forgoing formal education to support his family’s graphic design business, he cultivated a deep appreciation for genres like jazz, blues, and electronic music, alongside influences from Dada, Fluxus, and Abstract Expressionism. Since 2008, Grawoig has performed globally under aliases like D/P/I and Deep Magic, collaborating with luminaries such as Laraaji and Orphy Robinson and appearing at venues like MoMA PS1 and Mutek.

 

10 Artists to Watch in 2025
Left: Alexander Grawoig framing artworks | Right: Ad Hocc (5) by Alexander Grawoig (Acrylic, oil pastels, graphite, linen, cotton, staples and cardboard on wood panel, 2024, 100 x 70 cm)

 

Anne Mourat 

French sculptor Anne Mourat reimagines the classical figurative form through her bronze casts and clay models, introducing what she describes as "fantasies" in disproportion. By emphasising larger, unconventional body shapes rarely seen in traditional sculpture, Mourat celebrates humanity in all its power and fragility. 

10 Artists to Watch in 2025
French sculptor Anne Mourat moulding clay

Her ongoing series, Women/Objects, invites models to pose with an object of their choosing, allowing them to "refocus on the essential, detached from any external gaze." Through the grandeur of scale and commanding stances, Mourat reveals a striking vitality in each figure, tirelessly elevating their presence sculpture after sculpture.

10 Artists to Watch in 2025
Lolote (bronze casting based on an original modelled in clay, 2006, 22.5 x 25 x 21 cm) Edition of 6 | La Campée (bronze casting based on an original modelled in clay, 2006, 61 x 46 x 33 cm) Edition of 6

 

Casey Moore 

Contemporary photographer Casey Moore draws inspiration from landscapes as diverse as the wilds of New Zealand, the Austrian Alps, and the rolling hills of the UK. His meticulously composed photographs delve into nature’s epic scale with surreal precision, inviting viewers into a world where every detail pulses with life. Moore aspires to balance introspection and vibrancy, drawing viewers attention to the quieter moments often overlooked in day to day life. 

 

10 Artists to Watch in 2025
Photographer Casey Moore holding up one of his hand-printed photographs

 

Pen Dalton 

With a practice spanning over six decades, Pen Dalton navigates the shifting dynamics between painting and printing, image and text. Her work began deeply rooted in her childhood experiences with her father, who worked in the newspaper printing industry and introduced her to the expressive potential of text, print, and colour. These early influences shaped her exploration of oxymorons and binary perceptions: fathers and daughters, black and white, image and substrate, digital and analogue, mind and body. 

10 Artists to Watch in 2025
Left: Bolus by Pen Dalton (acrylic paint and mediums on home mounted beech panel, 2019, 39 x 28 cm) | Right: Pen Dalton

Her work also interrogates formal oppositions—transparent and opaque, gloss and matte, impasto and smooth. “I am interested in the social analogies and metaphors that can be inferred from these relationships and in what lies in the vast territory between,” she explains. In recent years, Dalton’s practice has pivoted to become one of reconciliation, finding harmony within these binaries by merging contrasting marks on the canvas into a cohesive whole.

For more inspiration, take a look at our What Collectors Have Their Eye On collection, updated monthly with wish-listed and saved works by Rise Art collectors. 

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