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The New Contemporary Art Magazine
Carrying a mystical undercurrent, Chie Shimizu’s sculptures are rooted in an exploration of "the significance of human existence.” The artist, born in Japan and based now in Queens, New York, has crafted these riveting figures over the past couple decades, moving between different scales and textural approaches.
The middle-aged figures inhabiting Madeleine Pfull's paintings are extracted from 1980s suburbia. The Australian artist has said that "beautifully painting mundane heroism is a large aspect of my work.” Pfull has said that she has modeled for herself to craft the paintings, donning wigs and accessories to embody the energy of her subjects.
Hirofumi Fujiwara’s isolated sculptures are called Utopians, each person actually an amalgamation of features and cultures. Many of these characters, said to be from a parallel world, are presented inside of barriers as they “bear witness.”
Uli Knörzer’s gorgeous colored pencil portraits are rich with detail and humanity. The artist moves between familiar and lesser known subjects in his work. Each is given his or her own space, Knörzer using negative space and abstracting garments to extract the figure’s personality.
In Adele Bessy’s crowded paintings, figures and faces are used as building blocks. Her work, in both its frantic quality and control, has been compared to the likes of Bosch and Arcimboldo. The artist is based in Achères, Ile-De-France, France.
Zhiyong Jing says he paints "dreams, bodies and absurd realities." The Beijing-based artist takes a surprising approach to scale in his work, often rendering distant figures on small canvases. The effect is cinematic, further underscored by the artist’s occasional use of pop culture references and characters.
Daiva Kairevičiūtė, an artist from Lithuania, crafts drawings that reflect on femininity— through the various stages of life and shades of identity. Her figures, often rendered in black, contrast with the pops of floral hues or creatures that inhabit her works.
Simphiwe Ndzube’s startling mixture of sculpture, painting, and installation both transport us to new worlds and examine our own mythologies. Recent pieces, blending, resin, spraypaint, collage, and found objects, feature figures that appear to emerge from traditional confines inside galleries. 
In his depictions of the everyday, Arcmanoro Niles recalls traditional figurative painting while subverting in his choice of hues and glitter—and also introducing strange characters into the scenes dubbed "seekers." These characters offer new insight and disruption to the people he pulls from his own life.
Anna Weyant’s stirring paintings offer both autobiographical imagery and universal examinations of life’s stages. Recent shows, like "Welcome to the Dollhouse" at 56 HENRY, are contemplative and elegant in execution. That show, in particular, was a showcase of the artist’s cinematic sensibility.
In Jillian Denby’s voyeuristic, yet expansive paintings, people engage in both everyday activity as well as the unexpected. When viewed as a whole, her scenes offer a connectedness between its parties that each likely couldn’t see themselves. With works like "Genius of the River Chases Away The Frenzy of Art," the reality of what’s human and what’s art itself is blurred. “Nature can be overwhelming and landscape a little removed. With that in mind and viewing it directly, I try to acknowledge its presence, while conceptualizing a fragile observational dialogue,” the artist has said.
Isaac Cordal brings new sculptures to C.O.A. Galerie in Montreal with "Ego Monuments," his distinctive everyman showing the solitude of contemporary living. Alongside his balding figures is a depicting of the U.S.'s embattled leader in "Game of Thrones" and human-faced livestock grazing an urban puddle. The show runs through Oct. 12. (Cordal was last featured on our site here.)
Sculptor Cristina Córdova’s absorbing and intimate figures inhabit a new show in Hodges Taylor in Charlotte. "CRISTINA CÓRDOVA: cuerpo exquisito" offers works with personal notes for the artist, whether in the pieces modeled after her daughters or the nods to her Puerto Rican heritage. She was last featured on our site here. (Photographs in this post were taken by Lydia Bittner-Baird.)
The samurai's enormous impact in Japan was even felt in fashion, and in Tetsuya Noguchi’s sculptures and paintings, contemporary fashion influences their own garb. "This Is Not a Samurai" is the artist's new show at Arsham/Fieg Gallery in Kith Soho. The micro-gallery in New York City has garnered praise for giving smaller works attention. The show kicks off today at the small space.
The sculptures of Federico Clapis often play with our tether to technology, from the womb to the modern professional. The former stage, in particular, is where we find some of the artist’s most provocative work. He recently unveiled the above piece, a massive bronze figure, in London.
Alvin Ong's oil paintings, depicting decadence and nondiscriminatory consumption, crackle with energy. These works, following a tradition in art history of examining these themes, move between eroticism and aggression. The Singaporean artist offered this most recent body of work as "Supper Club" earlier this year.
Painter Edward del Rosario's theatrical, yet controlled tableaus carry cross-cultural references. Often in the artist’s work, each of the characters seem to have their own narrative or motivation, creating a piece teeming with both humor and surprising complexity, once absorbed.
Aspencrow's hyperrealistic figurative sculptures blend the provocative with pop. Blending materials like resin, fiberglass, and silicone, his works serve as both admiring and wry portraits. The artist was born in Lithuania and moved to England to attend Birmingham City University, School of Art.
In Prescilla-Mary Maisani’s latest series of sculptures, "Frog's Dynasty," she presents amphibian deities that reflect contemporary self-infatuation. Displayed poolside, their obsession with luxury is underscored, with the artist recently displaying these works in Corsica. While previous series manipulated the human form, Maisani’s new set takes a more cartoonish and sardonic turn.
Examining masculinity and power, Scott Scheidly’s paintings re-contextualize real and fictional villains. Elsewhere in Scheidly’s practice, he injects the grotesque into floral motifs, further underscoring the painter’s knack for satire and subverting expectations. The artist’s humor is also evident in his short bio: “At age four I attempted my first art project by devouring a 10 pack of crayons thus turning my diaper into a Jackson Pollock.”
The work of surrealist Igor Morski combines analogue and digital approaches. His illustrations often contain their own secret messages and mythologies. Yet, there’s still something baldly universal in his subjects, whether unraveling or confined to contained within a seemingly endless wall of compartments.
Angelo Musco's textured work uses the photographed human body as its building blocks. The results are landscapes and structures literally teeming with life. Below, his studio offers a preview of his new project arriving this fall: “The Land of Scars,” a work that takes an even more personal and churning turn than previous series.
Kushana Bush is known for her packed, figurative gouache paintings, with influences from traditional Mughal and Persian miniatures, the Italian Renaissance, Japanese ukiyo-e, and beyond converging. Recent work takes a singular—yet still dynamic—approach. The New Zealand artist infuses contemporary reflections and interactions into each corner of her works, each containing several narratives worth investigating.
Joshua Hagler's new, massive oil paintings are packed with tension and political reflections, each appearing as memories emerging and dissipating. "Chimera” is his upcoming show at Unit London, named for the mythological creature or in a more contemporary sense, has “come to mean something which is hoped for, but is impossible to achieve.” The show begins on July 19 and runs through the end of August.
Whether on a canvas or a wall, Stamatis Laskos, also known as SIVE ONE, crafts stirring paintings in his distinct figurative style. His work appears to take influence from both the comic book and editorial illustration spheres, the latter in which Laskos has created major works, crafting portraits for the likes of The New Yorker and other publications.
Giorgiko is the moniker of husband-and-wife team Darren and Trisha Inouye, who craft works that meld classical painting with minimalist figures akin to comic strip characters. Yet, also contained within these works, even with their Charlie Brown-esque characters, is a hint of danger. Their current show at Giant Robot in Los Angeles, titled "Wonderfull," collects their latest experiments. The show runs through July 10 at the space.
Ryan Hewett’s experimental formations of the human figure, shaped with knives, brushes and paint rollers, return in a new show at the Unit London this month. Among the fresh works offered in “New Paintings” is the massive “Memories,” measuring more than 11 feet by 6 feet. The work took more than a year for the South African painter to finish. Hewett was last on our site here.
Naudline Pierre's paintings offer a look into both a broader spiritual plane and her own "personal mythology." The paintings, intimate and otherworldly, explore the vibrant and unseen. The artist's ghostly oil paintings has been shown in New York City, Los Angeles, London, and beyond, and she is a a recipient of the Terra Foundation for American Art residency.
Kiatanan Iamchan’s cacophonous paintings offer heaps of characters and unexpected elements, each assemblage acting as a growth adorning central figures. The artist says he's always had a passion for Thai fine art, in particular. Embedded in each of the paintings are cross-cultural, broad-scale reflections of an artist able to render multiple styles at once.