New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) returned to New York for a resplendent tenth edition over the weekend, hosting a bevy of 92 up-and-coming young galleries. Artists from South Korea, Detroit, and Montreal congregated at 548 West in Chelsea, celebrating modern art in all of its profundity and absurdity. Here are the seven presentations that resonated with us most.
Steffen Kern and Jan Kuhlemeier at Rutger Brandt Gallery
Steffen Kern, “Bed, Chair and Light,” 15x30cm, color Pencil on Paper, Rutger Brandt Gallery
Amsterdam’s Rutger Brandt Gallery occupied a booth positioned right at NADA’s entrance, filled with drawings and paintings that felt dreamlike and liminal. Steffen Kern’s Bed, Chair and Light (2024) is an ink and pencil drawing with the hazy, ambient glow of a dream, cast in moody red and blue shades; Jan Kuhlemeier’s acrylic paintings on linen—Zarautz (2024), Porto de Mos (2024), and Sunset at Cańos de Meca (2024)—feel reminiscent of aura photographs, with saturated hues which softly fade out at the edges.
Emily Coan at DIMIN
Emily Coan, “Study for On the Outskirts of the Forest,” 2024, Oil on panel, 12 x 16 in, 30.5 x 40.6 cm, courtesy of the artist and DIMIN.
The contemporary New York City gallery DIMIN situated Emily Coan’s idyllic, peaceful paintings along the walls of its booth at NADA. In both On the Outskirts of the Forest (2024) and Study for Spinstresses (2024), young women in matching white lingerie frolic in a sunlit forest; a utopia is imagined. Coan’s sweeping oil paintings range from book-sized to imposing large-scale panels, and earlier renditions of the two paintings, both dated 2023, hung in black and white next to their technicolor counterparts.
Sara Rahmanian at ILY2
Sara Rahmanian, “Coffee and Persian Cyprus,” 2024, acrylic on canvas 24 × 18 inches, courtesy of the artist and ILY2.
Hailing from Portland, ILY2 centers itself on emerging, mid-career, and underrepresented artists with a feminist focus. The gallery’s presence at ILY2 was not to be understated, featuring a refreshingly absurd series of acrylic paintings by multidisciplinary artist Sara Rahmanian. In each of her works, painted on either canvas or coffee filters, viewers are presented with a first-person perspective that defamiliarizes the mundane. Persian Cyprus (2024) presents a fantastical tree as seen from underneath the subject’s eyelashes; Zagros Mountains (2023) depicts a woman donning Mickey Mouse underwear whose breasts are fiery lumps filled with distorted human figures.
Minako Iwamura at JDJ
Minako Iwamura, “Nexus,” 2024, oil and white charcoal on cradled wood panel, 40 × 30 inches, courtesy of the artist and JDJ.
For the 2024 edition of NADA, Tribeca-based gallery JDJ debuted a solo booth of new paintings by Australian-born artist Minako Iwamura. In Iwamura’s oil and white charcoal paintings, swelling, symmetrical shapes and forms arrive in lush shades of aquamarine and rose to explore the interplay of colors and their psychological undertones. Each work emits an energetic pulse, allowing viewers to enter a liminal state that is at once abstract and corporeal. This exhibition marked Iwamura’s first solo debut with the gallery.
C.J. Chueca at KATES-FERRI PROJECTS
C.J. Chueca, Summer sadness or not, 2024 Acrylic on canvas 12 × 12 × 1.5 inches, courtesy of the artist and KATES-FERRI PROJECTS.
KATES-FERRI PROJECTS, a New York gallery whose representation focuses on marginalized artists, made its NADA debut with a solo showcase of works by the Peruvian conceptual artist C.J. Chueca. A series of hand-built ceramic airplane windows lined the gallery’s booth, ranging from blood red to the color of blueberries; the true centerpiece was the acrylic painting Summer Sadness or Not (2024), which occupied an entire wall. A winding road and the sky above come in a rich, indulgent orange, allowing viewers to travel with their eyes along the zig-zagging curves to arrive at a bright white sun.
Joani Tremblay, Sung Hwa Kim, and Stacey Leigh at Harper’s
Joani Tremblay, “Unsolved,” 2024, oil on linen, 48 × 40 inches, courtesy of the artist and Harper’s.
The bicoastal gallery Harper’s arrived at NADA with a surrealist, beautifully off-kilter set of new paintings. Canadian artist Joani Tremblay’s two oil paintings, On Water (2024) and Unsolved (2024) found themselves at different ends of Harper’s booth while simultaneously depicting lush, simulated dreamscapes dotted with citrus at their corners. Korean-born painter Sung Hwa Kim unveiled Still Life with Jar and Fisherman Incense Burner (2024), an acrylic and flashe work whose depiction of a vase reflecting a brightly lit field alongside a moonlit night is reminiscent of Magritte. New York City-based painter Stacey Leigh showcased Untitled (2024), an indulgent portrait of a woman dipping her toes into a pool as she holds her heels in her hand.
Marigold Santos at Patel Brown
Marigold Santos, shroud caring for self (ammonite ears and luna face), 2024 acrylic, pigment, gesso on canvas 41 × 26.5 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Patel Brown.
This year, Canadian contemporary gallery Patel Brown arrived at NADA with a series of portraits by Marigold Santos which toy with Filipino folklore surrounding aswang, or shape-shifting characters. In these psychedelic, gently fantastical paintings, Santos ruminates on her own feelings of displacement, fragmentation, and transformation. Female figures feature luna moths and flowers in lieu of facial features; in some works, their faces are turned away from the viewer or obscured altogether. Each shape-shifter blends almost seamlessly into the rippling background behind her, blurring the lines of where her body ends and her world begins.
