Art
Artsy Editorial
Black-Owned Galleries Now is an online showcase spotlighting 50+ Black gallerists and the Black artists they champion. This Black History Month, Artsy Editorial spotlights 10 rising artists we’re watching closely at the fair.
B. 2000, Austria. Lives and works in London.
Family histories, queerness, and identity are among the themes explored by Nigerian Austrian artist Cameron Ugbodu, whose broad artistic practice primarily encompasses painting, photography, and mixed-media wall pieces. Also known by their initials “See you,” Ugbodu draws on their family’s heritage, in Benin City in Nigeria’s Edo State and Austria’s Wachau region. Ugbodu’s works are inspired by their family upbringing, where craft played an important role.
In the collection of works from DADA Gallery’s presentation at Black-Owned Galleries Now, the artist’s considerable range is on view. In Split Heart, Same Blood (2024), for instance, a mixed-media self-portrait shows two versions of the artist in blue within a single heart wound across its brass frame. In a trio of monochrome portrait photographs, meanwhile, the artist depicts their restful subjects with closed eyes, using bold iconography including West African sculpture and hair art to explore identity.
A self-taught artist, Ugbodu has exhibited at galleries including SMO Contemporary Art in Lagos, and Doyle Wham and Saatchi Gallery in London. They have exhibited extensively with DADA Gallery in London, most recently at the group show “Tender Communions” last May. The artist’s photography has also been featured in magazines including Vogue Italia, DAZED, British GQ, and Fantastic Man.
—Arun Kakar
B. 1994, New York City. Lives and works in New York City.
At 30 years old, Satchel Lee has already made a name for herself in moving images, directing music videos for Panamanian singer Sofía Valdés and a short film for Gucci’s Changemakers scholarship program. Taking after her father, filmmaker Spike Lee, she has a keen eye for storytelling. However, her photography—primarily self-portraiture—also demands attention.
For instance, her “X-pression” series (2022), on view in Cierra Britton Gallery’s presentation in Black-Owned Galleries Now, is an exploration of her own identity. In six black-and-white portraits, Lee lounges on the couch, her body covered in a fluffy, hair-like material. These stark, contemplative photographs evoke the long history of Black women’s relationship with hair.
“I turned to my stash of unused braiding hair and opened up the few packs I had,” Lee said, on the gallery’s Instagram. “Every Black woman has a hair journey and story. Most people feel a visceral reaction when confronted with hair. It’s from the body. It falls out. Gets left behind. Is found in your sandwich. Dangerously wraps around baby fingers and toes. Requires constant upkeep.”
In 2024, Lee earned her MFA in photography from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She presented with Cierra Britton Gallery in 2022 in the group show “Body and Soul.” Her photographs have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Numéro, and Vogue Italia.
—Maxwell Rabb
B. 1982, Addis Ababa. Lives and works in Addis Ababa.
Tesfaye Bekele lays the canvas out beneath him before he starts painting. Supported by metal crutches, the Ethiopian artist towers above his work, swaying rhythmically as he wields a brush on a lengthy pole. This elevated perspective allows Bekele to execute sweeping strokes across his expansive canvases. For instance, in Elongated (2023), a riot of greens and earth tones clash and swirl. This piece is currently featured in Addis Fine Art’s presentation in Black-Owned Galleries Now.
In another piece, Blue (2023), Bekele evokes a moodier tone. Here, the stormy blues and erratic strokes evoke the tumult of a sea storm. For Bekele, these manic marks symbolize the turbulent paths we navigate in everyday life. “Most of us move through different situations, struggling and facing challenges. Movement is a process toward our final goal or success,” he explained in an interview with System Magazine.
An MFA graduate of Addis Ababa University, Bekele held his first solo exhibition with Addis Fine Art in 2023. He also exhibited at the Guramayne Art Center and LeLa Art Gallery in Ethiopia and participated in group shows at GravitArt Gallery in Kenya and Netzwerk Gallery in Trier, Germany. In addition to his practice, he teaches at the Allé School of Fine Arts and Design at Addis Ababa University.
—M.R.
B. 1995, Washington, D.C. Lives and works in Maryland.
A strong sense of community lies at the core of Glenn Hardy’s figurative paintings. From afternoons at the barbershop to team huddles on the football field, Hardy’s subjects embody the joyful moments of everyday life. The self-taught artist depicts the Black experience through moments of leisure, finding inspiration in those around him. “If I didn’t represent my community I honestly don’t know what I’d paint,” Hardy shared in an interview with OUTSIDELEFT.
Hardy’s work is presented in Black-Owned Galleries Now by San Francisco–based gallery Jonathan Carver Moore, with whom he has presented in numerous group exhibitions. Striking Black figures are a signature of Hardy’s compositions, often contrasted against brightly colored clothing. Rendered in vibrant hues of acrylic, Matching Sets (2024) is a playful double entendre, alluding to both the tennis match and the coordinated outfits of the young women depicted in the painting. Through visual storytelling, Hardy offers a heartwarming glimpse into Black life.
Hardy graduated from Towson University in Baltimore. He previously mounted a solo exhibition at UTA Artist Space and has been featured in group shows at COL Gallery, Rele, Ross-Sutton Gallery, and Jonathan Carver Moore.
—Adeola Gay
B. 1984, Mthatha, South Africa. Lives and works in Johannesburg and Cape Town.
In his multidisciplinary, worldbuilding project “iiNyanga Zonyaka (The Lunar Songbook),” South African artist Athi-Patra Ruga portrays distinct characters who inhabit a radical utopian future. In this three-act series, which ranges from a monumental stained glass installation to performances, Ruga presents vividly colored evocations of the heroes of this new world. He calls this nation Azania, referencing a historical area in southeastern Africa that, for him, evokes the promise of post-apartheid South Africa.
The artist has also translated these portraits into textiles, two of which are currently featured in Black-Owned Galleries Now, presented by BKhz. In one of these works, he depicts his protagonist Nomalizo Khwesi in the middle of a coming-of-age ritual, centering the transition to womanhood within a liberated, decolonized future. By conjuring these semi-divine avatars, Ruga places Black, queer, and femme experiences within a reimagined world order.
Other works from the “Lunar Songbook” series were also included in Ruga’s solo show “Interior/Exterior/Dramatis Personae” at WHATIFTHEWORLD in 2020. His work has been included in the institutional shows at the Hayward Gallery and Somerset House in London, and in the South African pavilion of the Venice Biennale. The Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, the Fondation Louis Vuitton, and Zeitz MOCAA are among the institutions whose collections house his work.
—Josie Thaddeus-Johns
B. 1995, Ottawa, Canada. Living and working in Winnipeg, Canada.
Canadian artist Bria Fernandes specializes in figurative portraits that capture Black women in moments of contemplation, their gazes drifting into a world of introspection. Her painting Come Rain or Shine (2023) depicts a young girl leaning dejectedly against a wooden dining table, two superimposed ghostly blue figures echoing her pose. This painting is featured in Kanbi Projects’s booth at Black-Owned Galleries Now.
Fernandes’s blue-toned spectral figures, subtle yet impactful, serve as visual metaphors for the internal conflicts that the subjects experience, evoking a kind of split consciousness. In another painting, Walking down limbo avenue (2022), one figure holding a coffee cup is surrounded by two ethereal blue figures looking in opposite directions—creating a dichotomy that indicates her external stoicism is internally fragmented. Amid social scrutiny, these figures seem to dissociate, adopting an impassive façade to avoid showing their vulnerability.
Originally from Ottawa, Fernandes now resides in Winnipeg, Canada. She began her studies at the University of Manitoba’s School of Fine Art before completing her BFA at Alberta University of the Arts in Calgary, Canada. Kanbi Projects mounted an online solo exhibition for the artist in 2022 titled “Illusion of the Unconscious.”
—M.R.
B. 1983, Compton, California. Lives and works in Los Angeles.
Self-taught artist Ashley Cole’s earthy, mottled paintings bear the influence of Black abstractionists before her: She channels the energetic markmaking of Mary Lovelace O’Neal and uses draped, unstretched canvases like Sam Gilliam’s. Building from a foundation of brown and black hues, which reference melanated skin, Cole layers streaks of colored oil pastel and wide slashes of paint that drip down the canvas like tears. Indeed, the artist’s practice is charged with feeling, which flows intuitively and cathartically into her abstract gestures. “During the creation of this piece, I shed layers of old emotions, delving into memories and releasing preconceived notions of what I thought this piece should be,” she wrote on Instagram of The shed (2024), a work that is featured in Rele’s presentation at Black-Owned Galleries Now.
Although her work is highly personal in origin, Cole welcomes viewers to project their own meanings onto her paintings—which have been featured in shows at TAFETA in London and Gallery 90220 in Los Angeles, among others.
—Olivia Horn
B. 1989, Harare, Zimbabwe. Lives and works in Glasgow.
Spirituality and the imagination shape the symbolic imagery found in Sekai Machache’s lens-based practice. The Zimbabwean Scottish visual artist and curator examines the notion of self, incorporating performance and lighting techniques to explore colonialism and representation.
In a standout work, The High Priestess (2021), on view in Sakhile&Me’s presentation in Black-Owned Galleries Now, Machache adopts the titular persona of the second card of the major arcana in the tarot, employing the color blue to evoke serenity. One palm is turned upwards, reflecting the artist’s interest in meditative hand gestures. A veil covering the subject’s face, meanwhile, suggests a separation between layers of consciousness. With spirituality at its root, Machache’s work offers viewers a space for healing.
Machache earned a BFA and an MFA from the University of Dundee. She has mounted solo shows at galleries including Sakhile&Me and Stills. In 2023, Machache completed an artist residency at the Talbot Rice Gallery in Edinburgh, and in 2024, the artist was featured in a group exhibition for the Zimbabwean pavilion at the Venice Biennale.
—A.G.
B. 1996, London. Lives and works in London.
In storyboard-like paintings, London-based artist Cece Philips constructs a moody cinematic universe that is largely devoid of men. Her subjects are inscrutable women of color in striking architectural environments that evoke the paintings of Edward Hopper or Giorgio de Chirico—if their palettes were dominated by primary colors.
In The Debate (2022), which is included in Ojiri Gallery’s presentation in Black-Owned Galleries Now, the setting is cryptic: A cadre of figures congregate on tiered rows of powder-blue banquet seating that give the painting a strong vertical pull. These women’s coordinated pink and red pantsuits convey power, but also conformity; it is unclear whether the titular debate is among them, or against some unseen adversary. This lack of resolution is common in Philips’s paintings, imbuing them with psychological complexity and intrigue.
By the time Philips graduated with her MA from the Royal College of Art in 2023, she had already been the subject of solo exhibitions at Peres Projects in Berlin and Post Gallery in Zürich, among others. That same year, the artist debuted at auction, where her 2021 painting Old Friend Encounter smashed its mid-estimate by 257%.
—O.H.
B. 1992, Barbados. Lives and works in Barbados.
From her Caribbean home of Barbados, Kadiejra O’Neal captures scenes from her everyday life in photographs, several of which are on view in Experience Jamaique’s presentation in Black-Owned Galleries Now. For instance, in Window Seat (2019), a woman looks out of the corner of her eye at the viewer as she leans out of a bus window. Taken from the vantage point of another vehicle at night, the photograph, with its flashes of yellow and red, evokes an instant of human connection amid the hustle and bustle of city life.
Several of O’Neal’s photos, shot in black and white, study the multiplicity of Black hairstyles. For example, Black Enough (2015) shows a head from behind, its hair split in half. One side is chemically straightened, the other worn in a natural afro. The work, with its provocative title, seems to reference the arduous social codes Black women navigate when styling their hair.
O’Neal graduated with a BFA in photography from Ryerson University in Toronto in 2017. Since then, her work has been shown in several exhibitions in Barbados—at Artist Alliance Barbados and Queen’s Park Gallery—as well as in public art spaces internationally, from New Jersey to Greece to Toronto.
—J.T-J.
