February 12, 2019

9 Emerging Los Angeles Artists to Watch in 2019news.artnet.com/art-world/artists-to-watch-la-1459744

Simphiwe Ndzube, The Theft of Fire (diptych) (2018). Courtesy of the artist and NicodimGallery.

Los Angeles is a multi-verse. There are countless routes to take, places to go, and artiststo watch, which can make the entire experience of visiting or living in the city a littleoverwhelming.

Now that you’ve figured out the most important spots to visits—if you haven’t yet, checkout our guide—you should know which artists to watch. So we checked in with the ninemost exciting art-makers in Los Angeles, who together represent a city that has no singleidentity. Some are political and sharp, others abstract and messy. Some make paintingsor sculptures, others make video or internet art. Others use everything available to them,including the city’s famous light sources. But most of all, they reflect the complex cultureof a city that is so often misconstrued as not having one.

Lauren Halsey

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Who: Halsey had a monster year in 2018. The artist, who was born and raised in LA,landed a solo show at the Museum of Contemporary Art, was included in the 2018 Madein L.A. Biennial at the Hammer Museum, and won the $100,000 Mohn Award.

Lauren Halsey’s plan for “The Crenshaw District Hieroglyph Project.” Courtesy of Kickstarter.

What to Know: “we still here, there,” Halsey’s show at MOCA, was an immersivearchitectural maze with nods to her birthplace of South Central LA, combining everythingfrom signage marketing black-owned businesses, to Black Panther memorabilia, toephemera associated with jazz and funk music. At the Hammer, Halsey presented “TheCrenshaw District Hieroglyph Project (Prototype Architecture),” a plywood-and-gypsumtemple that mixed graffiti, portraits of her family, friends, and Marcus Garvey, images ofSphinxes and hieroglyphs, and a picture of Egyptian queen Nefertiti eith an Egyptian-style architectural monument.

Look Out For: Last we checked, Halsey had raised over $18,000 on Kickstarter to turn“The Crenshaw District Hieroglyph Project” into a public artwork in South Central LA. Shealso signed with David Kordansky Gallery in November, so we expect a show there soon.

Cassi Namoda

Who: The Mozambique-born, Los Angeles-based painter has been stirring things uplately. The Pérez Art Museum Miami purchased one of her works using money from theNew Art Dealers Alliance Acquisition Fund in December 2018, and she has solo shows atthe Nina Johnson gallery in Miami and the OFR Bookshop in Paris. She was also written-up in a recent article in Vogue. Among her friends are fashion designer Maryam NassirZadeh, artist-musician Kilo Kish, and Lana Del Rey’s photographer sister, Chuck Grant.

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Cassi Namoda, Florist of the Nostalgia Graveyard (2018). Courtesy of the artist and Nina Johnson.

What to Know: Namoda describes her paintings as “Lusotropical,” which refers to the20th-century Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre’s theory that, because Portugal is awarmer place, the Portuguese were more humane colonizers (Mozambique was aPortuguese colony for nearly 500 years). The acrylic and oil paintings are colorful andemotionally intimate scenes of everyday life, loosely rendered, in the manner of AliceNeel.

Look Out For: Namoda will present her next LA show, “The Day a Monkey’s Destined toDie All Trees Become Slippery,” in March at Ghebaly Gallery.

Simphiwe Ndzube

Who: Last year, Simphiwe Ndzube had exhibitions all over the world: in Oaxaca; at theFrans Hals Museum in Amsterdam; the CC Foundation in Shanghai; and at Harper’sBooks in East Hampton, New York, plus a group show at Nicodim Gallery in Los Angeles.

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Simphiwe Ndzube, Uncharted Lands and Trackless Seas (diptych) (2018). Courtesy of the artist and Nicodim Gallery.

What to Know: Born in Cape Town in 1990, Ndzube often addresses life in the countryafter Apartheid, but with a surreal narrative structure. His pieces are large-scale, mixed-media collages, featuring grotesque, headless figures in banal clothes sprouting arms,light bulbs, and traffic cones out of their necks while slumping around colorfully abstractdreamscapes. Often, the figures become three-dimensional and the cones and clothesare made from found objects. His works go for around $8,000–$42,000.

Jibade-Khalil Huffman

Who: The Detroit-born artist and writer has been an LA staple since getting his MFA fromthe University of Southern California’s Roski School of Fine Arts in 2013. In the past year,he’s had shows at the Crisp-Ellert Museum in St. Augustine, Florida; at The Kitchen inNew York; at the KMAC Museum in Louisville, Kentucky; and at Ballroom Marfa (throughFebruary 18).

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Jibade-Khalil Huffman, Installation view of “Verse Chorus Verse” (2016). Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions.

What to Know: Huffman is never shy to use humor and contemporary concepts.Bridging a multitude disciplines—performance, video, photography, and text-based work—he often addresses glitches in our collective memories of, and language about, race.His works, like the performance “Defending Kanye West” (2017), which was presented atthe Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, are incisive, and he’s also written threebooks of poetry.

Look Out For: He has an upcoming show at Anat Egbi in Los Angeles later this year.

Karon Davis

Who: With her late husband, artist Noah Davis, sculptor Karon Davis is the co-founder ofthe Underground Museum in Los Angeles, which puts on incredible shows in conjunctionwith the Museum of Contemporary Art. Now based in Ojai, California, Davis had a banneryear in 2018. One of her works was acquired by the Brooklyn Museum, she had a soloexhibition at Wilding Cran Gallery in Los Angeles, and she was included in group showsat Jeffrey Deitch Gallery and the UTA Artist Space.

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Karon Davis, Nicotine (2016). Courtesy of the artist and Wilding Cran Gallery.

What to Know: Her show at Wilding Cran was populated by her signature, all-whiteplaster figures, this time in states of duress during climate disasters. Davis began toaddress displacement and evacuation after the she narrowly escaped the Thomas Firethat destroyed most of Ojai. Beth Rudin DeWoody is a major collector of her work.

Look Out For: Davis has been selected to present in Frieze Projects during the LosAngeles fair, from February 14–17.

Aria Dean

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Aria Dean, still from But as One Doesn’t Know Where My Centre Is, One Will With Difficulty Ascertain The Truth . . . ThoughThis Task Has Made Me Ill, It Will Also Make Me Healthy Again (Crowd Index) (2018). Courtesy the artist and Château

Shatto, Los Angeles.

What to Know: Dean’s work deals with black culture past and present, in sometimesabstract, sometimes head-on ways. Using a mix of sculpture, painting, video, and text-based works—or whatever gets her point across—Dean unearths personal and politicalhistories and brings them into the present.

Look Out For: She has an upcoming exhibition at Chapter NY gallery from Marchthrough May 2019.

Gajin Fujita

Who: Fujita stated his career in LA with graffiti crews before finding success in galleries.Last year, he was included in group shows at L.A. Louver; the Chinese AmericanMuseum; an exhibition titled “Beyond the Streets” at Werkartz; and the Los AngelesMunicipal Art Gallery.

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Gajin Fujita, Southland Standoff (2013). Courtesy of the artist and LA Louver.

What to Know: Fujita uses his personal history (his parents are Japanese) and thesurroundings of his youth to equal effect. He mixes graffiti-style lettering with anime,ukiyo-e woodblock prints, and partitioned screens—as well as subjects such Samurai,Geishas, and Japanese oni demons, dragons, cranes—to make his artwork. His drawingssell from about $3,500, while paintings go up to $200,000.

Look Out For: Fujita will present a solo exhibit in L.A. Louver’s booth at Frieze LosAngeles.

Trulee Hall

Who: This installation and video artist has a handful of group shows and film screeningsunder her belt, but it wasn’t until this year that her debut solo show opened atMaccarone Gallery in Los Angeles (through March 2). Her work has been collected byMiami mega-collectors Don and Mera Rubell.

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Trulee Hall, Serpent White (Corn) (2018). Courtesy of the artist and Maccarone Gallery.

What to Know: Born in Atlanta, but a longtime LA resident, Hall’s deliciously perverseand ambitiously complex environments have plenty of phallic, yonic, and anal imagery.The videos are no less wild. Her works run from $5,000–$15,000.

Seffa Klein

Who: Seffa Klein—granddaughter of Yves Klein—had a breakout year in 2018, showingwork at there-there, Ochi Projects, ArtMovement Los Angeles, and the Regime de FleursAtelier.

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Seffa Klein, Multiple Displacement No. 14 (2018). Courtesy of the artist.

What to Know: Klein’s “Fire Blanket” paintings shimmer with literal sparkles, but they doso in an incredibly sincere way. Those works, along with her “SK Bricks” series (whichresemble large LEGO blocks), are garnering attention around Los Angeles.

Look Out For: Klein will have work with Louise Alexander Gallery at the Art Los AngelesContemporary art fair.

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