Around this time of year I compile a roundup of artists’ achievements over the year. It’s always great to hear about our artists accomplishments (shortlists/prizes/significant shows etc.) and these annual memorandums of success, have historically proven to be accurate indicators of investability. Don’t get me wrong – I am not suggesting you should buy work based solely on its investability (unless that’s your shtick). Though if you’ve had your eye on a piece by one of the artists highlighted here, it might be prudent to invest now…
It’s vital that emerging artists are committed to their practice (as the journey is precarious and requires determination and courage) and this commitment is evidenced by their participation in shows, residencies, being shortlisted (and winning) certain prizes. These achievements also highlight that a specific artist is gaining (or maintaining) traction and attention in the art world.
If we look back over some of the previous years’ Notable Achievements (see links to: 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015..) we find a pattern from an investment point of view – with demand and therefore prices often increasing after these achievements. So, see below a round-up of NBA artist’s achievements during 2019 – and should you see an artist whose work you like, buy now, their prices may have increased the next time you come back..
This year we highlight 33 artists:
Emiko Aida has been featured in almost all the previous years’ notable achievements and this year has been her busiest yet:
58th Venice Biennale
‘Art on Paper’, New York,
‘London Original Print Fair’, RA, London.
‘RE Original Prints’, Bankside Gallery, London.
‘Solo Show’, For Art Sake Gallery, London.
‘Artist from Japan’, Group show, Viridian Artists Gallery, New York.
‘Swiss Art Expo’, On screen display only, Zurich.
‘Clio Art Fair’, New York.
‘Contemporary Print Exhibition’, Coombe Gallery, Devon.
Commission for Print collectors Club 2019 at Royal society of Painter- Printmaker, Bank side Gallery London.
Iain Andrews: Yale Art Collection in USA have acquired a piece by Iain. He completed a residency in Beijing and was runner up in Manchester Arts Prize for the third time. Iain was also included in a major show of British art at the National gallery of Poland, Gdansk.
Alexandra Baraitser exhibited at the prestigious Kettle’s Yard Gallery this year. .Her work was also featured in the Artcan Open Art Prize, London’s Trinity Art Gallery.
Bartosz Beda was awarded a fully-funded artist-in-residency at GoggleWorks, Center for the Arts. Three paintings that were produced during the residency are now in public collection at the Reading Public Museum. In 2019, Bartosz had a solo exhibition at the Brownsville Museum of Fine Art in Texas – the museum kept two paintings for their permanent collection. Beda also had a solo exhibition at Hopkins Center for the Arts in Minnesota.
Orlanda Broom was selected for the RWA Annual Open, Bristol and was selected for the Society of Women Artists Annual Open at Mall Galleries. Her work was selected for the Surrey Artist of the Year Award shortlist after taking part in the SAOS open studios this year. Earlier this year Orlanda was commissioned to paint a large-scale work for the newly renovated Cadogan Hotel in London and her work was exhibited in Mykonos over the summer.
Steve Burden had another outstanding year with the Zabludowicz masterclass award 2019, selected by Sacha Craddock for the prestigious Creekside Open, with group exhibitions at Alon Zakaim Fine Art, Andelli Art, Lane House Arts, No Format, Dadiani Fine Art on Cork Street, Peyer Fine Art in Zurich and several exhibitions in China. Steve was awarded a scholarship at Spike Island in Bristol, a Turps Banana Painting Prize, a Jerwood Bursary to develop his art practice and appointed as an Arts Ambassador for the charity Outside In. Liberty Mutual and the Ibrahim Foundation acquired works for their permanent collections. Next year Steve has solo shows planned in London and New York.
Rosemary Burn participated in the Florence Biennale 2019 and exhibited at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters.
Morag Caister was selected by the panel at the Hove Museum to be part of an exhibition in early 2019, her work was shown in the Design Renaissance Gallery in Hove over the summer, and she was accepted into the Organhaus artist residency in Chongqing for 2020.
Toni Cogdell was accepted to this year’s Black Swan Arts Open – a prestigious annual competition which champions excellence.
Peter Evans had a solo show and journal feature with Oliver Spencer in London, In the words of GQ, Oliver Spencer fashion has a ‘uniquely British take on relaxed style’.. Read an interview with Peter Evans here.
Peter also took part in a residency at Palazzo Monti in Italy and then exhibited as part of a group show.
In 2019 Elke Finkenauer received a Glasgow Visual Artist Maker Award, exhibited as Featured Artist at Glasgow Print Studio, had a work selected for the Wallace Art Awards (New Zealand), exhibited in a major two person show titled Something to Remember at The Suter Gallery (New Zealand), and contributed to the publication Quality Sleep: Harmony Life! at the Edinburgh Art Festival.
Rebecca Fontaine-Wolf‘s solo show at Koppel Project in London’s Soho was featured on BBC Radio, Vice, I-D magazine and Forbes, and she was an invited guest speaker at Hauser & Wirth Somerset as part of their Herstories season about inspirational women in the art world. Sir Tim Rice who is a collector of her work and one of this year’s ING Discerning eye selectors has invited her as a guest artist for this years Discerning eye exhibition along with his other guest artists, Jonathan Yeo, Lisa Wright and Paul Benney. Aesthetica magazine will be publishing a feature/interview with her next month, and Brenda magazine have shot a small feature film about her practice. She is currently preparing for a solo show in Lisbon for early next year.
See a short film about her work by Brenda Magazine.
Glib Franko exhibited this year in 58th Venice Biennale.
Emma Louise Grady has been selected for the Royal Scottish Academy New Contemporaries 2020 and she will be exhibiting at ‘Tatha Gallery’ in Fife in January 2020.
Emma Hartley Solo show at the Gallery Oxo, South Bank SE1 in Spring 2019 called ‘Jeopardy’. Emma was also commissioned to paint a large work by a New York interior designer and has had several works acquired for developments in London. Currently she is working towards a group show, ‘Regonition’ again at Gallery Oxo next spring.
Jo Hummel: This year has been the best yet for Jo – whose career is flourishing. Having enjoyed a recent successful solo exhibition in West London she had a further two solo shows in Edinburgh and Sweden (Sept and October respectively).
Kathryn Johnson, 2019 graduate Kathryn was awarded the Gordon Brown Memorial Painting Prize and was selected for the Mall Galleries FBA Futures 2020: Figurative Art by New Graduates’ Exhibition, 6 January – 18 January 2020.
Laura Menzies – 2019 exhibitions includes: Environments, Tate St Ives, Cornwall, ‘In the Stillness’ Book launch & Solo exhibition, Jubilee Wharf, Cornwall & Tate Staff Biennale, Tate Modern, London.
Christian Neuman: Solo Exhibition “INTO THE DEEP” with MOB_ART Studio Gallery in Luxembourg City. Exhibiting at Luxembourg Artweek 2019 (NOV 8 -10th 2019) with MOB_ART Studio Gallery. World Premiere of Christian’s Arthouse Feature Film “Skin Walker” at the 41th Cairo International Film Festival (he is writer and director).
2020: Exhibition at Luxembourg Embassy in Brussels. Solo Exhibition at MOB_ART Studio Gallery in Luxembourg City. Selection for artist studio sponsorship by the Luxembourg Ministry of Culture.
Kira Phoenix K’inan started 2019 with a solo exhibition, Intertwist, at The Hellenic Centre, followed group exhibition, Inspired, at London Glass Blowing, being featured in ViewZine, and she has been accepted to be part of Design Nation. Kira was shortlisted for the Ashurst Emerging Artists Prize. She will be exhibiting with artist collective ArtCan in two up-coming exhibitions, Counter/Balance and Elevate 02 at the Shard.
David Om was shortlisted for the Royal Academy of Arts – Summer Exhibition. His work was featured over eight pages in quarterly art magazine: Trebuchet ‘Time and Space’ issue. David exhibited at Cosmic Perspectives exhibition London & Rochester Contemporary Art Centre, New York.
Janine Hall: Achievements continue for Janine who had a piece selected for the Lynn Painter Stainers show at The Mall Gallery in March. She was included in a group show (Snapshot) at no format Gallery in September. Janine completed a wonderful residency (July) in Portugal at the Viarco pencil factory with a group of artists and was subsequently included in a show coming up at Trowbridge at Drawing Projects – December 2019 to February 2020.
Julie-Ann Simpson, was shortlisted for The Open Young Contemporary Artist Award 2019, The Biscuit Factory, Newcastle. She has been developing a new body of work in response to her residency in Japan and notably has had a large scale painted selected for The Royal Scottish Academy’s annual show – where she won the RSA Guthrie Award and Medal.
David Rae had a painting selected for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and also had his first Solo exhibition this year with the Roger Billcliffe Gallery in Glasgow.
Katharine Le Hardy had a solo show this year at Northcote Gallery – presented a series of work documenting the closure of London’s iconic last dog track as it was demolished to make way for a new stadium for AFC Wimbledon. Katharine was also awarded a prize from the Society of Women Artists at the MallGalleriesLondon.
Ruth Richmond this year has been selected for three artist projects, Waveney Sculpture Trail, Norfolk. Out of Wood for The Bleddfa centre, Wales and 50 Bees in Somerset, this last will be exhibited in the new year. She was also selected for The CAS Beecroft Exhibition in Chelmsford, Essex. Ruth has attended 2 Artist Residencies this year – one in Italy at Villapia and one in Wales at the Sidney Nolan Centre.
Michaela Hollyfield completed an artist residency at Oriel y Parc in St Davids and was subsequently invited to exhibit the completed work in a group show: ‘Celebration of Welsh Contemporary Painting”, alongside other highly respected Welsh Artists – Shani Rhys James, Mary Lloyd Jones, Alan Sailsbury, Martyn Jones, Cherry Pickles and others.
In 2020 she will be having two solo shows: One at Oriel y Parc from Feb 2nd to March 30th 2020.The other at Oriel Joanna Fields Gallery at the Torch Theatre in Milford Haven.
Laura Gaiger has participated in several group exhibitions in Bergen, Norway this year, where she is currently completing a Master’s in Fine Art. She recently had a solo exhibition of new paintings at Galleri Fisk in Bergen, and is working towards a group exhibition at Bergen Kunsthall in early 2020. During the year she has sold works to collectors in Norway, Spain, the UK and New Zealand.
Nicola Wiltshire has exhibited widely this year and had work selected for the RSA Annual exhibition and had a further two paintings pre-selected for open call exhibitions at Scottish National Gallery and The Meffan Art Gallery. Nicola has recently been nominated as a council member for Visual Arts Scotland and will be curating a group exhibition at the end of the year.
Stephen Todd has had a busy year with a Solo show “Inner Landscapes” at Ropewalk Gallery, Barton upon Humber. New work is to be shown in Tarpey Gallery, Castle Donnington, from November 2019. Stephen is currently working towards a new solo show in Sheffield (Cupola Gallery) “Fact from Fiction”, scheduled for 2020.
Jan Valik held two solo exhibitions this year, ‘Seeing Triple’ at CinCin Gallery in Bratislava, Slovakia and ‘Abstract Reality’ at Industra Art Gallery in Brno, Czech Republic, he had a major Two-Person exhibition with Japanese artist Akiko Ueda at Medium Gallery in Bratislava, Slovakia. This exhibition was also reviewed in Flash Art (Czech-Slovak version, October 2019) among other medias. Moreover, this year, Valik spent 3 months as Artist-in-Residence at Shanjian Contemporary Art Space in Beijing and his subsequent first solo exhibition in China is planned to be opened there in February 2020. Three notable group exhibitions this year were at Gallery Amart as a finalist of Amart Gallerry Prize in Vienna; at Star Art Space at Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts, Chongqing, China; and at Niche Gallery in Tokyo. In 2020 Valik will have his first solo exhibition in Brussels, Belgium at Husk Gallery (March 2020) along aforementioned solo exhibition in China (February 2020). And in his native country, one more solo exhibition will take place at Flatgallery in Bratislava, Slovakia.
Vikram Kushwah has had an outstanding 2019 – with inclusion in a group show at the National Portrait Gallery, London for the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize 2019. One of the winners of Portrait of Britain 2019 by the British Journal of Photography.- Long-listed for the Aesthetica Art Prize 2019. Finalist at the AOP annual awards in the ‘series’ category for the ‘Women in Bathing Suits’ series.- Part of the corporate collection of luxury hotel Kimpton Fitzroy, London & Editorial photography commissions for Vogue India.
