Five Emerging Artists Exploring Heritage and Environment at Frieze New York 2023
This year’s Focus section features artists that make connections between land, ancestral memory and cultural identity, from Mónica Giron’s work to highlight the rapidly changing Patagonian ecosystem, to Jagdeep Raina's narratives of Sikh and Punjabi diasporas
This year’s Focus section features artists that make connections between land, ancestral memory and cultural identity, from Mónica Giron’s work to highlight the rapidly changing Patagonian ecosystem, to Jagdeep Raina's narratives of Sikh and Punjabi diasporas
Featuring galleries aged 12 years or younger from across the world, the Focus section at Frieze New York brings together some of today's most exciting emerging artists. This year's highlights include artists that interrogate cultural heritage and environmental change.
Jagdeep Raina, presented by Cooper Cole
Working in textile, drawing, ceramics, and video animation, Jagdeep Raina examines narratives of the Sikh and Punjabi diasporas in North America and the UK. His multi-media practice considers how memory can transcend unstable environments, and illustrates that archives are constantly moving, evolving, and growing. Raina is best known for his hand-made embroideries that integrate representational stories of the Sikh diaspora with traditional Phulkari, a traditional form of weaving on muslin cloth using hand-dyed and organic materials invented in Punjabi villages.
June Clark, presented by Daniel Faria Gallery
Born in Harlem in 1941, Clark emigrated to Canada in the late 1960s due to political turbulence in the United States. In her work she is able to simultaneously depict the America of her childhood imagination and the country's inherent injustices, inequalities and histories of violence. In the series 'Perseverance Suite,' Clark manipulates the tools that she grew up watching people around her use in daily labor. Of the works, Clark has stated “These works come out my realization that I exist because of those who have come before me; those who persisted and persevered. They spur me on, and all of my art is made in constant collaboration with them beside me. Through these pieces I want to make a song. My ancestors can watch and rest.”
Emma Prempeh, presented by Tiwani Contemporary
Prempeh’s recent work explores interior spaces, pictorially colliding with elements of her personal history. For Frieze New York, Prempeh will debut a suite of new paintings, featuring light projections with a soundscape, to create an intimate spatial and sensorial experience. Several of the works on show were painted in Kampala, Uganda, representing an amalgam of all the spaces the artist calls home and linking the artist’s Caribbean upbringing, Ghanaian heritage and recent exploration of Uganda.
Mónica Giron, presented by Barro
Giron, who is currently presenting a solo show at Museo de Arte Moderno in Buenos Aires, draws inspiration from the stunning Patagonian landscape – and its rapidly transforming human and geopolitical contexts. For Frieze New York, Barro gallery will present Ajuar Para un Conquistador, 1995, a series of knitted clothes – including pullovers, leggings, gloves and scarves – for birds from the Patagonian territory, who are nearing extinction point. The clothes give a presence to the birds but also accentuate their absence.
Marcos Siqueira, presented by Mitre Gallery
Siqueira has always lived in the cerrado biome of Minas Gerais, Serra do Cipó, Brazil, where he works with the soil, researching its natural phenomena, and contributing towards environmental preservation practices. He uses the soil's pigments to create his chromatic scale, composed of ochre, green, silver, blue, black, gray, and red tones, in works which explore the region’s distinctive horizon line, vegetation, animals, people, festivities, and labor.
About Frieze New York
Frieze New York returns to The Shed in Manhattan from May 17 to 21, 2023 and promises to be an unmissable event. With an unparalleled selection of galleries and artists, alongside a critically acclaimed curated program the fair is a highlight of the global art calendar.
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Main image: Jagdeep Raina, Floral Coat (detail), 2022. Mixed media on paper. 50 x 63 in (127 x 160 cm). Courtesy the Artist and Cooper Cole
