Artsy has revealed the 8th edition of The Artsy Vanguard 2026, its annual feature spotlighting 10 rising artists shaping contemporary culture.
The 2026 edition of The Artsy Vanguard celebrates Agrade Camíz (b. 1988, Rio de Janeiro), Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley (b. 1995, London), Elise Peroi (b. 1990, France), Emil Sands (b. 1998, London), Geoffroy Pithon (b. 1988, Angers, France), Heidi Lau (b. 1987, Macau), Manyaku Mashilo (b. 1991, Limpopo, South Africa), Noelia Towers (b. 1992, Barcelona), Paul Hutchinson (b. 1987, Berlin), and Sayan Chanda (b. 1989, Kolkata).
This year’s Vanguard list centers on the theme “Reimagining Reality,” spotlighting artists whose work transforms the familiar into something visionary. Through symbolic, surreal, and emotionally charged worlds, they invite us to see—and feel—the world anew. From tactile weavings and otherworldly ceramics to immersive video games and expressive figurative paintings, their work reveals how art can invite both reflection and renewal.
“The 2026 Artsy Vanguard artists reflect where the art world and market are heading: towards work that prioritizes connection, meaning, and storytelling,”
says Casey Lesser, Artsy’s Chief Curator.
“They’re speaking to collectors who want more than aesthetics—they want to connect with the people and perspectives behind the art. Whether through deeply felt figuration (Noelia Towers, Emil Sands), mythic ceramics (Heidi Lau), interactive video game worlds (Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley), or joyful collaborations with brands (Geoffroy Pithon), these artists expand what art can mean and where it can live. Their growing visibility signals a shift toward art that challenges, comforts, and inspires us to imagine what comes next.”
The feature includes a three-part video series featuring the artists in their studios and shows across the globe, produced by Pushpin Films; a collection of available works by the featured artists; editorial profiles written by Artsy Editorial writers and contributors; and a digital billboard campaign in metro stations across the U.S. in partnership with Outfront Media.
About the artists
Agrade Camíz B. 1988, Rio de Janeiro. Lives and works in Rio de Janeiro. Since 2011, Agrade Camíz has been developing her artistic research in painting, initially in the streets, and later expanding into installations, video art, and photography. Seeking to dissect the banal, the almost invisible, she reveals deep and almost secret layers between figurations, abstractions, geometries, where she disputes established narratives. Using signs of popular housing, Agrade redefines spaces and concepts, creating new places. Her work is characterized by its density, its layers that reflect the chaos and intimacy of these geographical and bodily territories.
Current/Upcoming Highlights: Recent: Debuted new work at Art Basel Paris 2025 with A Gentil Carioca.
Recent international exposure: Featured in “Horizontes: Brazilian Contemporary Art Unveiled” at Grand Palais, Paris (2025). Gallery representation: A Gentil Carioca, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro; three solo
shows since 2021. Next: Continued presence in major fairs with A Gentil Carioca, including ART X Lagos
(November 2025).
Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley B. 1995, London. Lives and works in Berlin. Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley lives and works between Berlin and London. Working predominantly in animation, sound, performance, and video game development, and with a background in DIY print media and activism, the artist focuses on intertwining lived experience with fiction to imaginatively retell and archive the stories of Black Trans people. Danielle utilizes interactive technologies to create participatory spaces that challenge traditional narratives and encourage active engagement. Their projects often take the form of immersive video games, where players navigate choices that confront their assumptions and biases, fostering deeper conversations about identity, privilege, and systemic oppression. Through their innovative use of digital media, Danielle not only preserves histories but also envisions inclusive futures where the voices of those that are ignored or erased are central. Their work is both “archive and insurgency,” a catalyst for dialogue, inviting audiences to reflect on their roles within broader societal structures.
Current/Upcoming Highlights: Recent: Major solo show The Delusion at Serpentine Galleries, London (opened September 2025). Recent commissions: Berghain, Berlin, and Piccadilly Circus, London (2024–25). Earlier performance: Tate Modern live performance (2024). Ongoing project: Black Trans Archive (2020–23), interactive web archive.
Elise Peroi B. 1990, Nantes, France. Lives and works in Arles, France. Élise Peroi is a fiber artist based in Arles, France. Through intricately woven constructions, Peroi’s practice situates itself within the expanded field of contemporary textile art, combining painting, craft, and architectural traditions with conceptual depth. Woven with strips of shredded silk paintings and encased in wooden frames, the panels act as translucent veils through which light and atmosphere pass. Materially grounded and poetically expansive, her monumental installations explore thresholds of landscape and language, turning impermanence into a spatial and sensory experience. Peroi holds an MFA in textile design from the Brussels Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts. Institutional exhibitions include those held at the Boghossian Foundation, Belgium; Centre d’Art Contemporain Chanot, France; Bally Foundation, Switzerland; Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Italy; as well as the House of Crystal, Hermès, Netherlands. She is the recipient of the Pierre Cardin Prize for Sculpture, and has conducted notable residencies at Fondation Thalie, France, and Academia Belgica, Italy.
Current/Upcoming Highlights: Recent: Group show The Rose That Grew From Concrete at Museo di Sant’Orsola, Florence (2025). Recent: Solo debut in New York, For Thirsting Flowers, at Carvalho, Brooklyn (May 2025). Upcoming: Receiving the Pierre Cardin Prize for Sculpture (November 19, 2025).
Upcoming: Solo booth at Frieze Los Angeles 2026 with Carvalho.
Emil Sands B. 1998, London. Lives and works in New York. Emil Sands is a British-born painter and writer based in New York. He has staged solo exhibitions at Kasmin Gallery, New York (2025); JO-HS, Mexico City (2024); and Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York (2023). Through his considered brushwork and intuitive use of color narratives, Sands explores narratives filled with sensitivity and pathos. He attended Central St. Martins and the University of Cambridge, followed by a Henry Fellowship at Yale School of Art and Yale Creative Writing. His memoir on growing up with cerebral palsy, extended from a personal essay first printed alongside his paintings in The Atlantic, will be published by Scribner (U.S.) and Picador (U.K.) in 2026. Sands was included in Cultured Magazine’s annual Young Artists list in December 2024.
Current/Upcoming Highlights: Recent: Presented new work at Frieze London 2025 with Victoria Miro. Upcoming: Group show at Victoria Miro, London, opening November 14, 2025. Earlier in 2025: Solo show at Kasmin (now Olney Gleason), New York. Forthcoming: Memoir based on his Atlantic essay “Society Tells Me to Celebrate My Disability. What If I Don’t Want To?” (book due early 2026).
Geoffroy Pithon B. 1988, Angers, France. Lives and works in Nantes, France. Geoffroy Pithon (b. 1988) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Nantes, France. A graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (ENSAD) in Paris, he is known for his large-scale paper paintings and immersive installations—his Cabines—that explore the tension between abstraction and figuration, engaging viewers’ instinct to connect shapes with reality.
His practice is rooted in spontaneity, fragmenting and reassembling his own works into vibrant, energetic fields where every gesture remains visible. Life is omnipresent in his approach, as he considers paper a “medium for recording gestures and outbursts.” Influenced by post-Impressionist movements such as the Nabis and the Fauves, as well as by David Hockney and Pierre Alechinsky, Pithon combines bold color, expressive gesture, and layered techniques to create works that balance immediacy and reflection.
He has exhibited in cultural centers and public art institutions across France, including the Centre Culturel de l’Ouest (CCO) and the Église Saint-Eustache in Paris. In November 2025, he will present his first museum solo exhibition at the Chengdu Museum of Contemporary Art in China. In parallel, Pithon has collaborated with luxury brands, most notably Hermès, for which he has designed multiple projects—including ephemeral scenography for a dozen boutiques across the United States in September 2025.
Current/Upcoming Highlights: Recent: New solo show Boutique Murmure at MA?T Gallery, Paris (Fall 2025). Upcoming: Solo museum show at Museum of Contemporary Art Chengdu, China (opens November 6, 2025). Commercial collaborations: Recent projects with Hermès and Sézane; currentlyfeatured in shop windows of Hermés stores in New York this fall.
Heidi Lau B. 1987, Macau. Lives and works in New York. Heidi Lau’s practice embraces clay as an ideal conduit for exploring the malleability and materiality of time. Her hand-built clay formations range from intimately scaled figures to siteresponsive installations, melding organic bodies with totemic objects and primordial monuments. Large-scale architectural columns ripple like the spine of a massive creature, while the textured, earthen surfaces of her vessels recall coral structures or fossilized ruins—holding a
vital presence suspended between life and decay. Drawing upon Taoist mythology, Chinese landscape painting, and vernacular spiritual practices, Lau’s ceramics explore anti-categorical imaginings of material and space, channeled through personal memory and ritual.
Heidi Lau grew up in Macau and is based in New York. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at the 58th Venice Biennale, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, M+ in Hong Kong, the Macao Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and UCCA Clay in Yixing, China.
Current/Upcoming Highlights: Recent: Shortlisted for the Sigg Prize 2025 at M+ Museum, Hong Kong, for Pavilion Procession (2025). Recent institutional: Featured in Monstrous Beauty: A Feminist Revision of Chinoiserie at The Met, with work now in the museum’s collection. Upcoming: Two-artist show at ICA San Francisco (2026). Past highlights: Residency and exhibition at Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn
(2021–22), and Venice Biennale Pavilion for Macao (2019).
Manyaku Mashilo B. 1991, Limpopo, South Africa. Lives and works in Cape Town. Manyaku Mashilo is a South African artist whose work spans mixed-media painting, drawing, and collage. Her practice explores themes of spiritual identity, memory, ancestry, and belonging, drawing inspiration from photographic archives to create expansive, abstract scenes. Mashilo’s works depict Black figures migrating through celestial, liminal spaces, symbolizing both spiritual and ancestral journeys. Using family photos and historical imagery, Mashilo blends personal and collective memory to construct “cosmological landscapes” that imagine new futures and renegotiate identity and representation. Her 2023 solo exhibition “An Order of Being” was held at Southern Guild Cape Town, followed by “The Laying of Hands” at Southern Guild Los Angeles in 2025—her U.S. debut. Mashilo has exhibited at Gagosian (London), Kunsthal KAdE (Netherlands), MoAD (San Francisco), Iziko South African National Gallery (Cape Town), and the Stellenbosch Triennale. Her work is held in prominent collections such as the White Rabbit Gallery, Hort Family Collection, Pizutti Collection, and others.
Current/Upcoming Highlights: Recent: Debuted new work at Frieze London 2025 with Southern Guild.
Earlier this year: First U.S. solo, The Laying of Hands, at Southern Guild, Los Angeles. Upcoming: Presentation at ART X Lagos (November 2025).
Noelia Towers B. 1992, Barcelona. Lives and works in Chicago. Noelia Towers is a Barcelona-born, Chicago-based painter. Her works explore the intricate dynamics of power, sociopolitical archetypes, and trauma, blending deeply personal experiences with broader philosophical themes. Delving into the intersection of identity and personal narratives, Towers’s paintings have a distinctly feminine lens. At once tender and philosophical, her paintings reflect on fleeting gestures and relationships, revealing larger questions of connection and belonging.
Towers’s work invites viewers to engage in dialogue, encouraging connection and recognition within the shared human experience. Ultimately, Towers’s art serves as a conduit for empathy and introspection in the face of collective struggles. Through a practice rooted in figuration and observation, Towers distills the ordinary into images that resonate with both personal and collective meaning. Towers’s work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions across the United States and Europe; her work is included in the permanent collection of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami.
Paul Hutchinson B. 1987, Berlin. Lives and works in Berlin. Paul Hutchinson critically examines the unfolding of social processes in urban space. In both his photographic practice and his writing, he employs a distinct tone infused with elements of inner-city culture while addressing class issues, questioning power structures, and situating the self within wider society. Oscillating between poetry and political statement, his work functions both as commentary on external circumstances and as a translation of an inner world. Through activities ranging from public installations to reading performances, Hutchinson expands traditional uses of text and image, offering a nuanced characterization of contemporary life.
Hutchinson studied at Berlin University of the Arts and at Central Saint Martins, London. He is a fellow of Villa Aurora, Los Angeles. In 2025, Hutchinson was appointed to the Fine Arts Commission of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).
Sayan Chanda B. 1989, Kolkata. Lives and works in London. Sayan Chanda reimagines votive objects, folk divinities, and mythic narratives as hybrid, ambiguous forms through the lens of identity and postcolonial theory. Working intuitively with fibre and clay through weaving, stitching, quilting, dyeing and hand building, he creates work that inhabits a speculative terrain untethered from place, culture, or period.
His practice often returns to the idea of domesticity, where notions of defence and protection permeate the work. Both his references and his materials move fluidly between the domestic and the communal. Chanda frequently works with vintage quilts from Bengal, tearing them into strips, dyeing them and reweaving them with cotton, wool, jute, and sisal.
Chanda received his bachelor’s degree in textile design from the National Institute of Design, India, in 2013 and an MFA from the University of Arts, London, in 2021. His work has been exhibited widely in shows internationally, including: Cample Line, Scotland (2025); Green Art Gallery, Dubai (2024); British Textile Biennial (2023); Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai (2022); Commonage Projects, London (2022); Saatchi Gallery, London (2021); South London Gallery, London (2021), and Nature Morte, New Delhi (2021).
MORE: artsy.net/the-artsy-vanguard-2026
