5 Artists on Our Radar in July 2024

“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.

B. 1987, Berlin. Lives and works in Berlin.

Early summer has ushered in a well-deserved spotlight on the emerging German Irish photographer Paul Hutchinson, whose poetic images explore urban life and questions of social mobility. Last month, Hutchinson’s work appeared in the Art Basel presentations of two galleries: Sies + Höke (whose booth was among Artsy’s 10 favorite booths) and Knust Kunz Gallery Editions. This high-profile moment of recognition came on the heels of a solo show at Galerie Russi Klenner in Berlin and an accompanying sold-out monograph.

Hutchinson’s frequent subjects include strangers, street trash and flotsam, and architectural details from his travels. Serendipitous moments—such as in Schmetterlinge, yellow backdrop (2019), where the artist memorializes a butterfly lingering on his tripod—highlight his keen eye for beauty in uncommon places. Oscillating between solemnity and hopefulness, Hutchinson’s images reflect the influence of German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans, for whom Hutchinson worked as an assistant for many years.

Hutchinson received an MA in photography from Central Saint Martins, and a BA in communication from the University of the Fine Arts Berlin. He was the recipient of the IBB Prize for Photography in 2015.

—Jordan Huelskamp

B. 1988, Chrzanow, Poland. Lives and works in Gdynia, Poland.

Cross Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette with the cover of Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream and a dash of Slavic folklore, and you’ll end up somewhere near the enchanted, ultra-feminine aesthetic of Monika Marchewka. The Polish artist’s paintings are filled with cotton-candy clouds, pearlescent seashells, and shimmering bodies of water—the stuff of girlhood daydreams.

But despite their splendid environs, Marchewka’s female subjects seem unsettled, caught in surreal moments of transition or uncertainty. In Mirror (2023), for example, a blue-haired nude gazes at her reflection, only to find a cosmic void where her body should be. Marchewka’s women are often crying, tears adorning their faces like jewels.

Frequently employing the same motifs, Marchewka’s paintings act as storyboards—an unsurprising approach, given the artist’s background in film. A graduate of the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, she worked as an animator, including on the 2017 feature film Loving Vincent, before turning to painting full time. This summer, her work has been featured in a solo show, “In Between,” at Monti8 in Latina, Italy, and a group show at LAMB in London. She has previously exhibited at ​​Tchotchke Gallery in New York and Artistellar in London, among other galleries.

—Olivia Horn

B. 1995, Rome. Lives and works in New York.

Agnes Questionmark unpacks identity, surveillance, and the boundaries of the body across her varied practice. In a corner of the main exhibition at this year’s Venice Biennale, she pulls spectators into a theatrical operating room where the line between public and private blurs. The installation, titled Cyber-Teratology Operation (2024), features a pregnant trans body adorned with alien-like tentacles and situated under the harsh glare of surgical lights. Its visceral setup foregrounds the invasive nature of medical and digital observation and critiques the scrutiny faced by trans people.

At KÖNIG GALERIE in Berlin, Questionmark’s recent solo exhibition “The Unborn Patient” considered similar themes of surveillance and control over non-normative bodies. In performances, silicone sculptures, and paintings of dragon-like beasts, the artist explores models of fluidity in the face of what she calls “a failing biological paradigm.”

A 2024 MFA graduate of Pratt Institute, Questionmark has shown her work at the Centre d’Art Contemporain in Geneva, the MAXXI museum in Rome, and the Gwangju Biennale. Beyond institutional walls, she has mounted durational performance projects in such locations as a train station in Milan and an abandoned rec center in London.

—Maxwell Rabb

B. 1993, Cartagena, Spain. Lives and works in Mexico City.

Flowers bloom seductively throughout Spanish artist Kora Moya Rojo’s paintings. Portrayed in a bright color palette and an oozing, bulbous aesthetic, the artist’s blossoming subjects morph into strange shapes. Distorted petal configurations bend and twist across her paintings in oil and watercolor, which also feature fleshy tropical fruits.

In her solo show “Ofrenda,” on view at DANIELA ELBAHARA in Mexico City through July 19th, the artist elevates these scenes in large works on canvas, some oval-shaped. Another series of smaller works are presented on mint green, leaf-shaped altar shelves, and turn the ritual of offering (the English translation of the exhibition’s title) into bright, contemporary evocations of the surreal elements of nature.

Though this is her first solo exhibition in her adopted hometown of Mexico City, Rojo has exhibited internationally, including in her first solo at Be Advisors in London in 2023, and numerous group shows at Sens Gallery in Hong Kong and Annka Kultys in London. She received her MFA from the University of Fine Arts in Murcia, Spain.

—Josie Thaddeus-Johns

B. 1997, Saga Prefecture, Japan. Lives and works in Tokyo.

Inspired by the moment between sight and recognition, Hiroto Tomonaga invites the viewer into a liminal world where vision and perception are disjointed. Working on large-scale canvases, the artist uses thin layers of oil paint, tempera, and wax to accumulate texture and evoke movement. The results—featured in a recent solo show at Tokyo gallery KOSAKU KANECHIKA—feel untethered from the physical world, as if Tomonaga’s abstract forms exist only behind a shimmering, translucent veil.