Bold opening: December 2025’s five artists you need to know are reshaping contemporary art with fearless experimentation and fresh perspectives.
But here’s where it gets controversial: this lineup isn’t just about who’s hottest right now, it’s about who’s quietly challenging the established gaze and redefining representation in unexpected ways.
5 Artists on Our Radar in December 2025
Art
Dec 2, 2025 10:06PM
“Artists on Our Radar” is a monthly series that spotlights five artists who have captured our attention. Using our art expertise and Artsy data, we identify creators who made an impact in the past month through new gallery representation, exhibitions, auctions, art fairs, or fresh works on Artsy.
Imogen Allen
B. 1997, Cornwall, England. Based in Cornwall.
British painter Imogen Allen creates lush, gauzy compositions that invite viewers to reconsider perception. Her works often zoom in on butterfly wings, highlighting subtle color gradients, bold spots, and striped patterns. Figures dissolve into fields of color, evoking a soft blur reminiscent of Gerhard Richter’s famous technique. Allen’s sensitivity to nature and texture stems from her upbringing near Cornwall’s wild moorlands.
This year has been especially busy for Allen. This month she debuts new paintings at NADA Miami with Megan Mulrooney, following her recent two‑person show, “Imago,” at Soho Revue in London. Her works are part of the Burgundy-region project “TERRA,” showcased across heritage sites in France, and she recently contributed notable pieces to a group exhibition at Blue Door Gallery in New York.
Allen trained at Camberwell College of Arts in London and has completed residencies in Brazil, Australia, and the U.K. She was named Young Penwith Artist of the Year in 2024 and has held solo presentations at Penwith Gallery in Cornwall and Unit in London.
—Casey Lesser, Editor in Chief
Elian Almeida
B. 1994, Rio de Janeiro. Based in Rio de Janeiro.
Brazilian artist Elian Almeida works across portraiture, archival research, and narrative painting to reposition historically marginalized figures as protagonists within Brazilian visual culture. His pieces often reference historical photographs, reimagined with vibrant palettes, celestial motifs, and nods to mythology and pop culture.
In a current dual exhibition with Alberto Pitta, “Carnival, Struggle and Other Brazilian Stories,” at Nara Roesler in New York, Almeida deepens his exploration of Afro-Brazilian identity by turning to myth, folklore, and everyday ritual as zones where history and imagination converge. A recent work, Land of the Holy Cross (A Latin Scale after Albert Eckhout) (2025), depicts a woman bearing a vessel beside an enormous peacock—an emblem of beauty, power, and spirituality—set within an almost dreamlike landscape. Eckhout, a 17th‑century Dutch painter, documented Indigenous Brazilians in ethnographic portraits, and Almeida’s piece reclaims representation from colonial viewpoints.
Almeida earned his BA in Fine Arts from the University of Rio de Janeiro Institute of the Arts and has shown widely across Brazil, including group shows at MAM Rio and Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo. His works are held in institutional collections such as ICA Miami and El Espacio 23.
—Arun Kakar, Senior Art Market Editor
ektor garcia
B. 1985, Red Bluff, California. Nomadic in practice.
ektor garcia builds sculptural worlds from a suite of tactile materials: wire crocheted into flexible lattices, bulbous clay forms stacked and knotted, and leather joined with meticulous, jeweler’s precision. His practice draws deep inspiration from the traditional crochet techniques taught by his grandmother in Mexico. In his current show at the San José Museum of Art (his first institutional solo), garcia suspends and situates sculptures around the room, creating a cohesive, multi‑dimensional installation even as components are dispersed.
A recent group show at Rebecca Camacho Presents in San Francisco features works that evolve from earlier sculptures. For example, pieles (formerly wire mesh) is displayed with a newly added black border, unraveling and then reconstituting itself as part of a larger dialogue about form and memory. This willingness to transform past works into new configurations is a hallmark of his approach.
To craft his lifelike sculptures, garcia travels and works outside traditional studio spaces—on beaches, parks, and other open settings. He earned a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from Columbia University. In addition to his San José Museum of Art project, he has a solo show at Galerie Nordenhake in Stockholm and participated in the 2024 Whitney Biennial.
—Josie Thaddeus-Johns, Senior Editor
Eny Lee Parker
B. 1989, São Paulo. Based in New York.
Eny Lee Parker’s ceramic objects exude softness, with rounded forms and glazed surfaces that catch natural light. The New York–based designer specializes in clay, shaping sconces reminiscent of calla lilies, taller floor lamps, and vases perched on bulbous bases. Her work is currently featured in the solo show A Soft Place to Land at Hannah Traore in New York, where the gallery’s back room becomes a welcoming retreat shaded by plush red carpet that complements the pieces’ refined whimsy.
Born in São Paulo, Parker moved to Los Angeles as a teen, later earning degrees at the Savannah College of Art and Design (BFA, MA, MFA). She established her Brooklyn studio in 2017 and has since shown with VERSO and Objective Gallery in New York, collaborating with brands like Lulu and Georgia.
—Maxwell Rabb, Staff Writer
Jesse Zuo
B. 2000, Beijing. Based in New York.
Jesse Zuo’s paintings fuse flesh and light into luxurious, highly detailed figuration. In the vein of peers such as Rachel Lancaster and Alexis Ralaivao, Zuo tightens the focus on the body’s soft contours, rendering them with photorealistic precision. Delicate hoops glint at ears, nails gleam, and sun‑dappled skin glows in scenes that feel both intimate and canonical. Many works feature a recurring anonymous figure with long braided hair, sometimes appearing as if the subject is both near and out of reach—present yet concealed.
Zuo earned both a BFA and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York and has shown with Latitude and Hashimoto Contemporary in New York, as well as sobering in Paris. This month, her work will also appear in a group show opening at Copenhagen’s V1 Gallery.
—Olivia Horn, Managing Editor
