Artists to Have on Your Radar in 2025 From Frieze London and Beyond
As 2024 comes to a close, here are the artists to have on your radar for the new year.
As 2024 draws to a close, we spotlight the rising artists who have made their mark this year at Frieze London and are poised to gain more attention in 2025. From boundary-pushing sculptors to experimental installations, these emerging artists are the ones to watch.
Olivia Erlanger
Showcased at Soft Opening in London, Olivia Erlanger’s exhibition Fan Fiction featured a series of butterfly sculptures shaped like ceiling fans alongside a short film titled Appliance. “I have been focused on appliances and their histories for a number of years now,” she says. “This interest has taken the form of a book, a play, and a short film. I felt like it was time to engage directly with my research by creating sculptures that exist as half-functioning domestic technologies.”
To create these playful fan sculptures, Erlanger repurposes everyday objects such as utensil holders, shower curtain rods, and trash cans. “The sculptures may appear uniform, but upon closer inspection, you’ll see they exist as a Frankenstein of other utilitarian devices.”
Erlanger, an artist and director, affirms that creating art is a nonlinear learning experience. “For me, at the end of one project, there are always loose threads that have unravelled or are left unresolved. Following those usually lead me to the next body of work,” she says.
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Lorena Lohr
With work in both Soho Revue and Dover Street Market London, British Canadian artist Lorena Lohr drew inspiration for her paintings from a three-day cross-country trip from the east to the west coast of the U.S.
One morning in 2010, Lohr woke up to a blue-to-pink dawn light across Arizona’s desert landscape. “I’d been fascinated by religious and mythological medieval and northern Renaissance paintings for a while, looking at reproductions in libraries and second-hand bookstores whenever I could,” she says. That morning, she made her devotional painting mirror the landscape. Although the desert is often regarded as barren, Lohr found it incredibly vibrant with life.
She then taught herself how to draw and paint, using a tiny closet in her apartment as a studio. “I would stay up for nights on end making these small and highly detailed oil paintings,” Lohr says.
“It was not my conscious intention in the beginning, but I have noticed that in setting the women in the Southwest, whether in desert vistas, motels, or bar rooms typical to the region, I have been able to explore the themes, tropes, and mythologies of western machismo.”
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Lorenzo Vitturi
Fractal #1 is a striking piece made from wool, bamboo silk, Murano fused glass, Peruvian yarn, and fishing nets. The work is a personal map of Vitturi’s journey to rediscover his mixed heritage.
“Eight years ago, I decided to retrace my father’s travel from the Venetian lagoon to Peru, where he met my mother, in a journey that is still ongoing,” Vitturi says. This exploration fuels the ongoing Caminantes series, which combines photographs and sculptures to unlock a deeply personal journey.
“Every shape in this work is connected to a specific moment or encounter with a material, an object, or a person that I chanced upon along the way and documented with photographs,” Vitturi says. “Each encounter—whether with animate or inanimate elements—has helped me reconnect with my family history.”
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Benedikte Bjerre
Sculptor Benedikte Bjerre’s The Birds, a humorous nod to Alfred Hitchcock’s classic horror film, was displayed at Frieze London and turned heads.
Describing the creative process as a “sculptural one-take,” Bjerre explains that the idea came together unexpectedly. The process itself was quick, direct, and full of energy—an approach she sees as a positive sign of a promising idea in the making.
Working conceptually with sociological phenomena in a versatile way, Bjerre specializes in sculpture and installation work that critiques the dynamics of contemporary society. “One work often grows out of another. I often try to find a meaningful way of mirroring the context I am showing in.” Using humour and playfulness, The Birds goes deeper and conveys the absurdity of how we are acting in a climate crisis.