Five Emerging Artists to Watch at Frieze New York 2025

The Focus section at Frieze New York 2025 is a platform for the most innovative voices in art today. Led by Lumi Tan, 12 young galleries show solo presentations, with new international names making their Frieze fair debut alongside a vibrant contingent of New York spaces.

Installation work is at the fore of this year’s Focus. Exciting solo projects include Yehwan Song’s barnacled vision of our algorithmic age, Citra Sasmita’s reinvention of Balinese mythologies and Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley’s tender exploration of Black trans experience.

Citra Sasmita presented by Yeo Workshop (Singapore)

Originating in the 15th century, the Kamasan painting technique was exclusively practised by male artists to narrate Hindu epics. Balinese artist Citra Sasmita reclaims female agency in the technique, in long vertical paintings that explore the experiences of female figures who have been fetishized, suppressed or erased across Balinese literature, indigenous Indonesian histories, Dutch colonial narratives and iconography. Looking beyond the contemporary moment and into the future, Sasmita creates powerful, divine female protagonists inhabiting a post-patriarchal world. ‘Vortex of the Land of No Return’, presented by Yeo Workshop, is Sasmita’s first solo show in the US and develops the themes of her exhibition ‘Into Eternal Land’ at London’s Barbican (30 January – 21 April). 

Yehwan Song presented by G Gallery (Seoul)

New York-based artist Yehwan Song takes the metaphor of the internet as a ‘sea of information’ as a starting point for her installation with G Gallery, which combines cardboard and projected images. In The Barnacles (2025), internet users are assembled as a vast colony of arthropods, adapting to the demands of their digital environment, succumbing to the flow of algorithms and clinging to the system. Song satirizes the concept of a digital utopia, revealing how our participation in a homogenized internet ecosystem distorts our ideas of independence, information and communication.

Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley presented by Public (London)

In Public Gallery’s space, visitors ‘CLICK TO ENTER’ one of Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley’s choose-your-own-adventure video works. Fusing animation, sound and performance, Brathwaite-Shirley’s anxiety-inducing games tackle transphobia and racism, asking players to confront their own shame, prejudice and accountability. Brathwaite-Shirley’s aim is ‘to archive Black trans experience’. In accompanying new works on paper and painted resin sculptures – depicting semi-abstract digital avatars who are auto-tuned in song and speech – the artist centres ideas of care, responsibility and empathy. In response to the slick digital worlds of contemporary video games, Brathwaite-Shirley chooses a glitchy VHS aesthetic, crafting spaces in which ‘to hold tenderness, to bury the dead that did not receive burials, to forgive those that hurt us’. 

Luana Vitra presented by Mitre Galeria (Belo Horizonte)

Minas Gerais in southeastern Brazil is a region defined by industrial mining. Born and raised in this scarred landscape, artist Luana Vitra immersed herself the materials of iron and soot from an early age. Now, in sculpture and drawing, she explores the physical, chemical and spiritual dimensions of the mineral world. Working with everyday objects, such as construction tools and materials, Vitra transforms the familiar into the unfamiliar to question how we relate to the landscapes that shape us.

‘Luana Vitra: Amulets’ is at the Sculpture Center, New York, 1 May  –  28 July.

C.L. Salvaro is presented by Central Galeria (São Paulo)

C.L. Salvaro tops Central Galeria’s space with a three-tiered wire ceiling encrusted with white objects. In dddecay (2025), Salvaro’s site-specific project for Frieze New York, the São Paulo-based artist reflects on Brazil’s climate of instability. The idea of urban ruin also inspires Salvaro’s sculptures, which capture both urban detritus and natural phenomena, including resin, fibreglass and plaster casts of tree branches, rocks and consumer packaging.

Further Information

Frieze New York, The Shed, 7 – 11 May, 2025. Limited early bird tickets are on sale – don’t miss out, buy yours now. Alternatively, become a member to enjoy premier access, exclusive guided tours and more.

BUY TICKETS

To keep up to date on all the latest news from Frieze, sign up to the newsletter at frieze.com, and follow @friezeofficial on Instagram, and Frieze Official on Facebook. 

Frieze New York is supported by global lead partner Deutsche Bank, continuing its legacy of celebrating artistic excellence on an international scale.

^{Main Image: Citra Sasmita, Act One (detail), 2024. Courtesy: the artist and Yeo Workshop © Citra Sasmita}