10 Artists To Look Out For At Art Basel

Asia’s biggest and arguably most important art fair opens next month, drawing curators, collectors, and critics from around the globe. Oliver Giles brushes up on 10 creative talents to seek out at Art Basel in Hong Kong

- Oliver Giles

1. NICOLAS PARTY

XAVIER HUFKENS

When making his brightly-coloured portraits and still-life paintings, Swiss artist Nicolas Party mines art history for inspiration—and it shows. You can see the influence of Botero in his fleshy, round-faced subjects; the impact of Cézanne on his stripped-back still lifes; and the mark of David Hockney in his continued use of vivid, fresh-from-the-bottle colours. Like the artists of yore who inspire him, Party seems destined for great things. He’s not yet 40 but has already had a major solo exhibition at the esteemed Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington DC.

2. WANG YIN

VITAMIN CREATIVE SPACE, BEIJING

While many contemporary Chinese artists have earned international acclaim by making boundary-breaking digital art, Wang Yin has remained faithful to the traditional medium of oil paint. Each of his paintings provides a snapshot of life in contemporary China, giving viewers a glimpse into both bucolic countryside and bustling cities. In one recent painting, Wang illustrates farmers tilling the soil beneath a picture-perfect sky; in another work from the same period, a faceless man sits cramped in a windowless, four-bed berth on a train. Look closely at his paintings in the Vitamin Creative Space booth and you might see the influence of Wang’s idol, Paul Cézanne, in the elegant, long-limbed figures.

3. TAKEO HANAZAWA

GALLERY SIDE 2, TOKYO