6 Artists to Watch and Collect This Summer
Art Business News shines the spotlight on 14 artists with curated collections on Redwood Art Group's Online Art Marketplace.
For the past 35 years, Art Business News (ABN) has brought cutting-edge talent to the forefront. In a recent blog post, ABN featured its current obsessions—14 artists with curated collections on our Online Art Marketplace. There’s nothing better than finding an artist whose work speaks to you, so take a look at the first six artists you should consider collecting this year.
Amy Shekhter | Studio Jackie
Amy Shekhter is a pop artist inspired by iconic figures of the past and her love of today’s fashion. She uses a creative mix of mediums, combining digital design with various layers of texture found from resin, crystals, glitter, and paint. By putting a modern spin on familiar imagery, Shekhter’s pop art not only introduces younger generations to these important icons but also touches on materialism and values in today’s culture.
“Being a full-time artist allows me the freedom to express myself through creating,” she says. “It’s one of the greatest things. I make art that makes me feel happy, and my hope is that when someone puts my work in their home, it gives them that same feeling. I am so grateful for all of my collectors, colleagues, and followers for joining me on my journey.”
Clare O’Neill
Each piece of Clare O’Neill’s work is beautifully created with intent—each with its own story to tell. Working in mixed media, O’Neill combines her photographs with pigments, wax, and oils, adding a sense of mystery and intrigue to her contemporary photo encaustic paintings. She uses rich imagery, bold brush strokes, and playful drips to create paintings full of gesture, spontaneity, and motion. It’s a labor-intensive process where the photographs are printed on tissue paper in multiple pieces and then carefully embedded into layers of hot beeswax. The result is a stunning, modern, ethereal design with a warm textural appeal.
Here’s O’Neill’s manifesto: “I believe in the transformative, enriching nature of art. What we do to create meaning and beauty and connection with one another is central to living a well-balanced life. So often we are on autopilot. We forget that our moods and emotional state are oftentimes impacted by our environment. Art makes life more livable and is an extension of your individual style. Each time we add a new piece of artwork, our story becomes a little clearer. It’s these everyday stories that connect us to our own lives and those close to us. Live with art, personalize your space, and feed your soul.”
Diana Vurnbrand | Contemporary Art Projects USA
With prestigious degrees from the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem and the New England School of Photography in Boston, Diana Vurnbrand is inspired by 15th-century paintings to create powerful yet romantic portraits of women. She creates models of romantic rooms, then photographs the image as the last step of her artistic process. The real work takes place in the construction of the elaborate headdresses and painted backgrounds, fabricating an atmosphere of mystery and romance and developing an interaction and statement between mother nature and strong beautiful women.
Diego Guti | Studio Jackie
Award-winning artist Diego Guti was born in Colombia and achieved academic success at both the Miami International University of Art and Design and the University of Antioquia. Interested in creating artistic works aimed at the intervention of social problems, Guti work predominantly features urban aesthetics and themes. With clear reflections about life on the streets and mass consumerism, Guti approaches the individuality of the human being from the perspective of the daily differences of each side of the social gap. From this, he draws his inspiration.
Dmitry Syrov | Syrov Art
Born in Russia, Dmitry Syrov studied geology and geography after high school but found that this was not his path in life. By 25, he had totally dedicated his efforts towards his beloved craft of art. Syrov believes in the freedom of art. His paintings are sensual, passionate poetry, locked away on a canvas. Embracing the mood of the painter, viewers are forced to live, dream, and become unbounded by their imagination. The search for balance and harmony on the canvas becomes self-evident in both his impressionism and abstract paintings. Syrov is an artist unwilling to let the negative products of civilization hold him back, believing that it is better to love the world around him than to live in the tension of hating it. Rather than scare or shock or reflect the reality of today, it is better to move on into eternity, fantasizing, pleasing, and realizing people’s dreams. No character is needed: His reality is on the canvas. He creates without system or rules, letting the atmosphere of the painting speak.
“Painting, like any other form of art, is the language of feelings and emotions, that our soul speaks in,” he says. “Every person is a complex musical instrument, and art—in this case, painting—is the tuning fork that tunes this instrument.”
Jacinthe Rivard | Studio Jackie
Jacinthe Rivard lives in a little town just outside Montreal, Canada. For years, she had been painting portraits. Then, one day in 2017, she painted a six-pack of Coca-Cola. The response was overwhelmingly positive, so she started painting more objects from her youth. She realized that a vintage telephone could bring a range of emotions—like that first love, sitting by that phone waiting for them to call. A water gun can bring back memories of younger days playing in the yard on a hot summer day. She also loves to paint food items. Food makes people happy, and that is what her art is all about. Rivard paints in oil from photographs she takes herself. She can spend hours behind her camera, trying to make water droplets stay on a Perrier bottle or to make three donuts balance on top of one another. When you see her paintings, they look like a photo until you take a closer look. Then the brushstrokes and all the texture are revealed. It’s hard not to touch them and “feel” the painting. Today, she is internationally recognized, awarded, and collected.
“I paint everyday objects, always in oils,” she says. “I love to go antiquing to find the perfect vintage object to star in my art. My muse is always the light. I love the way it reflects on a glass bottle, metal, or even a plastic wrapper. A Coke bottle is just a Coke bottle until you shine a spotlight on it and then it becomes a superstar! The first step in my creation is taking the right picture. I take a lot of pictures before I’m happy with one. For me a nice picture equals a nice painting. I have studied Fashion design, but, other then that, I’m self-taught. I’m just a girl, standing in front of the world, asking it to love her because she paints pretty pictures.”
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