Returning to London for the first time since 2020, Condo London 2024 hosts 50 galleries across 23 spaces from January 20th through February 17th. Below Will Hainsworth picks four artists worth tracking down at Condon London this year.
Stella Zhong at Carlos/Ishikawa (Courtesy of Chapter NY)
Although Stella Zhong’s practice is rooted in painting, it extends out in various directions, particularly towards sculptural installation through the careful selection of canvas shape, size and orientation. The works often depict suspended geometric shapes, floating in a hazy monochromatic abyss. The objects have a weight and intensity that’s mirrored by scrawling, raw brushstrokes in different areas of the canvas. These geometric shapes are almost in conversation with the physical structure of the artwork; spheres are rendered on cuboids, and arranged in a way that hints at a parallelogram, culminating in a satisfying visual experience.
Zhong was born in Shenzhen in China in 1993. She lives in New York and holds a BFA in glass from Rhode Island School of design and an MFA from Yale University.
Nika Kutateladze at Modern Art (Courtesy of Artbeat, Tbilisi, Georgia)
Like Stella Zhong, Kutateladze also experiments with the crossover point between painting and installation. His works aim to capture some of the sense of isolation that comes from living in the Georgian mountains, where he used to live, while drawing on his background as an architecture student. Plastic and metal found in Georgian building sites are glued and nailed together to form pyramids, before being arranged around canvases in the downstairs space. This composition – whether intended or not – has the effect of acoustic baffles. Sound in the room is soft and stops dead, which has a calming, meditative effect nicely complemented by low lighting.
Nika Kutateladze was born in 1989 in Tibilisi, Georgia, where he lives and works. He completed his education at Masters Level at the Centre of Contemporary Art Tbilisi in 2013. Prior to that he studied on the Faculty of Architecture at the Tbilisi State Academy of ARts between 2007 and 2011.
Nona Inescu at Rodeo (courtesy of Import Export, Warsaw)
Nona Inescu’s floor installation at Rodeo is comprised of a group of aluminium Venus traps stretching out via metal chains from a central ring. Inescu is the latest in a long line of artists to respond to the Venus flytrap’s yonic connotations; the plant has become an unofficial totem for powerful femininity and here, sprawled on the floor and set up to look like bear traps, they feel particularly powerful.
Nona Inescu was born in 1991 and lives and between Berlin and Bucharest. She completed her studies in the summer of 2016 at the National University of Arts in Bucharest (Photography and Video Department) after studying at the Chelsea College of Art & Design in London (2009-2010) and at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp (2010-2011).
Beth Collar at Herald St (Courtesy of Erlich Steinberg, Los Angeles)
Beth Collar’s first limewood carvings were described as “a journey into an archaeological or biological sequence – tracing the evolution and material culture of an alternative, parallel humanoid which appeared to emerge from an imaginary primordial swamp.” The tension between nature and technology here is quite compelling: the work’s are made from natural material and handcarved, but they also use cosmetics and look as though they’ve been machine cut or 3D printed. This work has the aura of an ancient Roman bust or a thespian mask, while simultaneously appearing as a futuristic figure. Its vacant, slightly gormless expression is unsettling. It draws you in and, as it does so, you half expect it to twitch or blink.
Beth Collar (b.1984) is a British artist based in Berlin. In 2020 she completed a residency at the British School at Rome, during which she began a new body of work.
Words: Will Hainsworth
Will Hainsworth is a London-based art advisor with ten years of experience in the contemporary art world. After beginning his career at Victoria Miro and the Peggy Guggenheim collection in Venice, Will worked at contemporary galleries and art advisories in both London and New York. He has a BA in English Literature & Philosophy from the University of Sussex and an MA in Russian Literature from UCL.
@londonartcollector
All photo’s ©Will Hainsworth
