Thursday, August 8th 2024
The art world is an ever-flowing river of talent and every year, as new faces fill the scene with their work. This time, we’re putting the magnifying glass on a group of young promising painters, as we take a closer look into 5 Royal College of Art Graduates from London: Miyeon Yi, Bárbara Alegre, Alexis Soul-Gray, Hettie Inniss, and Shaquelle Whyte. An example of previous RCA graduates making waves is Pam Evelyn, a standout from 2022 who, before graduating, was already the subject of a solo exhibit at Peres Project, Berlin in October 2021, with rumors of a major solo show at a renowned London gallery this year. So, it’s only fair that we keep an eye on last year’s batch.
"The art world is an ever-flowing river of talent"
MIYEON YI
Egg tempera is the foundation for every piece painted by Miyeon Yi and up close, every brushstroke from her delicate process evokes such levels of emotion that it’s very easy to fall in love with her work, just like we did. In her paintings, you can see individuals or groups playing cards, preparing for family rituals, or just coexisting – basically, portraying life itself, from the mundane to the celebratory. Something that stands out from her work, besides her rich assortment of color, it’s gesso seeping down the edges of the wooden canvases of her paintings, applied by hand and adding sculpted tactility, adding purposeful imperfections to a pristine piece.
BARBARA ALEGRE
Working between Barcelona and London, Bárbara Alegre was a student at Chelsea College of Art and Design before heading to the Royal College of Arts for her MFA, as the article from Ocula based on her work states: “Her delicate close-ups are a means of respite for the artist, who treats art as a form of shelter, a contemplative practice which one can return to and reflect on”. Her paintings go from depicting situations from her own personal life, experiences and loss, to universal questions relatable in a wider way. Her 2020 series is a clear reflection of everything that was going on in the world, celebrating and “the all-encompassing sense of connections between people”.
ALEXIS SOUL-GRAY
With abstraction and color as main pillars, every portrait made by Alexis Soul-Gray is undeniably hers, thanks to the consistency of her linework and the distinctiveness of it, specially the veiled wash she employs over each expressive face. The exploration of tenderness and how it can be expressed through kindness, sensitivity and even pain, lead the way for her work, taking the corruption of innocence as a starting point as well. “Alexis paints her lived experiences from images sourced from Renaissance art, found photo albums, and 20th century advertisements”, reads her Ocula piece and we agree after taking a look at one of her latest exhibits.
HETTIE INNISS
Born in 1999, this young painter completed her BA at the University of Leeds before heading down to London to complete her MA at RCA. Deliberation over detail and selective paint density come to mind as soon as you see a painting from Inniss, and this is a good thing, as she questions the stability of memory and identity, while breaking down notions of representation advocation for Black Fluidity. She’s definitely one that will me making headlines in the future for all the right reasons.
SHAQUELLE WHYTE
Whyte is one of the youngest of this bunch, but you couldn’t tell by looking at his work and how much depth it has. The exploration of the human condition and his own lived experiences through oil pastel are the center of his work, similar to many greats artists who take inspiration from their own lives. “What I realised in a really good tutorial with Michael Armitage was that I wasn’t painting people—I was painting myself and using the paintings as anchors to drive forward an idea. And that’s how I developed my idea of treating paintings as devices to mobilise different ideas”, Shaquelle says.
Disclaimer: All images attached to this article are not property of Lorem Ipsum.
Sources:
ocula.com/
