21 For 2021

To kickstart the new year in inspiring fashion, we’ve curated a selection of 21 emerging painters who are doing fresh and exciting things within the traditions of figurative art

1 Valeria Duca

This globe-trotting 25-year-old painter is set to build on her first London solo show

There are countless artistic responses to the global pandemic being crafted as we enter, at time of writing, a second national lockdown in England. Yet there are perhaps none that tread the delicate line between the personal and the universal as imaginatively or humorously as Valeria Duca’s latest body of work. In a series of figurative oil-on-canvas works, the 25-year-old painter positions herself in various scenarios that veer between comedy and tragedy, dreamy and direct, sensuality and resignation. In doing so, she captures something of the restless energy felt by many during the extended lockdown. We see Valeria’s painted alter-ego gorging on confectionery, throwing shapes in front of a mirror or curled up in a ball in a doorway as she is surrounded, rather surreally, by flowers. In Friday Evening, she appears simply overwhelmed, lying on the floor with a pillow over her face and surrounded by new clothes with the tags still on them, as a cat looks on, more intent on finishing dinner than curing her owner’s woes.