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5 Artists on Our Radar in January 2025

Artsy Editorial
Jan 15, 2025 11:07PM

“Artists on Our Radar” is a monthly series focused on five artists who have our attention. Utilizing our art expertise and Artsy data, we’ve determined which artists made an impact this past month through new gallery representation, exhibitions, auctions, art fairs, or fresh works on Artsy.


Sabrina Bockler

B. 1987, New Jersey. Lives and works in New York.

Welcome to the dinner party of your dreams—or, perhaps, your nightmares. The New York–based artist Sabrina Bockler paints aristocratic scenery and deliciously ornate tablescapes flush with the deep, velvety textures of Dutch Golden Age still lifes. Yet amid all the finery—lobsters, seashells, goblets, overflowing vases of flowers—are spooky Surrealist details that give the work an unsettling edge. The nude, bathing subject of Private Eyes (2024) is surreptitiously observed by a plant that has sprouted eyeballs; Trophy (2024), meanwhile, features a seemingly dead swan with two heads.

While preparing “Shallow Water,” her first solo with Richard Heller Gallery in Los Angeles (on view through February 15th), Bockler looked to the Roman goddess Diana. In mythology, Diana turns the hunter Actaeon into a stag after he intrudes on her bath; he is later killed by his own hounds. The way Diana “fiercely protects her sacred space” inspired Bockler, she wrote in her artist statement. In the context of ongoing debates about women’s bodily autonomy in the U.S., Bockler’s works evoke the sanctity—and susceptibility—of women’s rights.

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Bockler earned her BFA from Parsons School of Design in 2011. She has previously had solo shows at Hashimoto Contemporary in New York, Beers London, and Duran Contemporain in Montreal.

—Olivia Horn


Emiliana Henriquez

B. 1986, El Salvador. Lives and works in Los Angeles.

Warm Blue Velvet,” Emiliana Henriquez’s current exhibition at Half Gallery’s Annex space, is an exploration of the commonalities between people. The Los Angeles–based artist was inspired by a recent trip to Egypt, where she was struck by the similarities in headwear between women across faiths. These women, and the religious devotion evoked by their covered hair, became the subjects of quiet, tritonal portraits. Whether tied in a short knot on the nape of the neck as in Teimani (2024), or draping all the way to the floor as in Tittawin (2024), the head coverings Henriquez depicts highlight the tactility of fabric and foreground its role as a medium for concealment across cultures.

Henriquez sees her portraits of others as a way to visualize parts of herself, as she explained in an interview for the prestigious Fountainhead Artist Residency in Miami, which she completed in September. In previous group shows, including at Half Gallery, Superposition, and Andrea Festa Fine Art, she has explored her own experiences as a Latin American woman of color in monochromatic portraits. Henriquez has also exhibited in a solo show at Fortnight Institute and a group show with the FLAG Art Foundation, both in New York.

—Josie Thaddeus-Johns


juli baker and summer

B. 1993, Bangkok. Lives and works in Bangkok.

juli baker and summer’s oeuvre offers a peek inside her vibrant world, drawing inspiration from a range of influences including personal conversations and popular culture. (Her pseudonym references characters from the rom-coms Flipped and 500 Days of Summer.) Working in a range of media, from acrylic paint to watercolor pencil and ceramics, the Thai artist employs energetic brushwork and whimsical forms in her depictions of humans, flora, and fauna.

At Access Bangkok Art Fair last month, the artist was featured in a solo presentation, “Journal of the Nordic Lands,” with SAC Gallery Bangkok. Among the works on view was Pick Berry, Pick Feelings, Pick Sunset (2024), an expressive portrait of a figure seemingly immersed in water. This piece, like many of juli baker and summer’s compositions, features text handwritten by the artist, underscoring the importance of storytelling in her work. She also presented playful ceramic sculptures, shaped like snails and abstract forms, that serve as candleholders—toeing the line between the decorative and the functional.

juli baker and summer studied fashion and textiles at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. Her work has been shown at galleries across Asia, including ART Is. TOKYO GALLERY, River City Bangkok, Artemin Gallery, VS Gallery, Spiral Gallery, and SAC Gallery Bangkok. She has also collaborated with brands including Nike, Lamy, and Maison Kitsuné.

—Adeola Gay


Elizabeth Osborne

B. 1936, Philadelphia. Lives and works in Philadelphia.

In the 1960s, Elizabeth Osborne’s paintings focused on intimate interiors, nude figures, and still lifes. However, during her visits to Manchester, Massachusetts, in the ’60s and ’70s, she became captivated by the flowing motion of the water while painting en plein air on rocky beaches. These trips pushed her to experiment with color and form, resulting in landscapes with a luminous, saturated palette. “It freed me up a lot with color,” Osborne later explained.

Osborne’s radiant landscapes are currently showcased in “Landscapes of the Mind’s Eye,” her second solo exhibition at Berry Campbell Gallery, which represents her in New York. The exhibition, on view through February 1st, features paintings and works on paper spanning more than a half-century. One standout, Blaze II (2004), depicts rolling hills in fiery hues, layered with serene blues and greens that simulate the natural movement of light across a horizon. Osborne channels the same fluidity and luster that caught her eye on those rocky beaches, creating glowing impressions of the natural world that brim with wonder.

A fixture of Philadelphia’s art scene, Osborne attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts before earning her BFA from the University of Pennsylvania in 1959. Osborne began exhibiting with Philadelphia’s Locks Gallery, which represented her for over 40 years and mounted 17 of her solo shows, in 1972. Her work is in the collections of the Delaware Art Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art, among others.

—Maxwell Rabb


Chris Trueman

B. 1978, Corvallis, Oregon. Lives and works in Los Angeles.

Using tools such as palette knives, squeegees, and spray paint, California-based artist Chris Trueman builds up—and in some cases, scrapes away—layers of paint, creating rhythmic contrasts across his energetic, dynamic compositions. His work is at once traditional and contemporary, drawing from the history of abstract painting as well as graffiti, and invoking both the physical and the digital.

These contrasts are on view in “Future at Present,” Trueman’s current solo show at Bentley Gallery in Phoenix, which is on view through January 25th. In many works, the artist uses flat blue and green gradients, which call to mind placid pools of water—or the chilly glow of an idle monitor. Elsewhere, flecks of spray paint allude to the tension between chance and the artist’s deliberate movements, much like the paint drips used by Jackson Pollock. Influenced by the gesturalist tradition of Abstract Expressionism, Trueman believes in markmaking as a record of the artist’s presence. Yet on the same canvases that collect his active gestures, the artist also buffs out color into smooth, textureless fields—an act of erasure that alludes to the difficulty of being physically present in today’s world.

Trueman earned his BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2003 and his MFA from Claremont Graduate University in 2010. He has presented in exhibitions at the Lancaster Museum of Art and History in Lancaster, California; Winston Wächter Fine Art in Seattle; NAVA Contemporary; and elsewhere.

—Isabelle Sakelaris

Artsy Editorial