Art
“Artists on Our Radar” is a monthly series focused on five artists who have our attention. Utilizing our art expertise and Artsy data, we’ve determined which artists made an impact this past month through new gallery representation, exhibitions, auctions, art fairs, or fresh works on Artsy.
B. 1999, Lagos. Lives and works in London.
Spirits, braids, and shells feature in Bunmi Agusto’s surreal compositions, which combine fantasy with elements of West African folklore. In her latest solo exhibition, “Tales By Moonlight,” on view at Tiwani Contemporary in London through November 1st, the artist presents a new body of work spanning drawing, painting, printmaking, and moving image. These new works continue her world-building practice, taking place in the self-referential fictional universe the artist calls “Within,” where her alter ego is the protagonist.
In one featured work, Dyeing the Sky (2025), “Within” crosses into the spiritual realm. Oral tradition inspired this scene, where spirits sit above the sky, coloring it deep indigo using Nigerian dyeing techniques. Cowrie shells become stars. Believed to be the first pan-regional currency in West Africa, these shells are highly symbolic, representing divinity, fertility, and wealth. Such dreamlike settings and intricate details produce scenes that are at once familiar and unknown.
In 2020, Agusto earned a BFA from Central Saint Martins. She holds an MA in history of art and archaeology from SOAS University in London, and an MFA from the Ruskin School of Art at the University of Oxford. This month, Agusto will exhibit at Frieze London, participating in a group presentation with Tiwani Contemporary and mounting her debut solo presentation at the fair with TAFETA.
—Adeola Gay, Senior Curatorial Manager
B.1982, Sydney. Lives and works in Paris.
Historically, Gregory Hodge’s works reveled in bold, muscular brushstrokes and restless abstraction. More recently, his focus has shifted to quieter scenes: a tree-lined lakeshore, a cluttered storefront, a dim home library. Painted in acrylic on linen, these scenes appear crumpled or blurred. The effect comes from Hodge’s technique of dragging layers of pigment across the surface with combs and custom tools, creating the illusion of woven textiles.
These new works are the subject of a solo show at Nino Mier Gallery in Brussels, “Echo,” on view through October 17th. In Interior with Books (all works 2025), a domestic scene dissolves into a mesh of flickering marks, while Millefleur erupts with blossoms that appear embroidered. Hodge’s fascination with fibers developed during two residencies at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, where he studied French weaving traditions as a way to rethink painterly gestures.
Hodge earned a PhD in fine arts from the Australian National University in Canberra. Earlier this year, he presented solo shows at Australia’s Sullivan+Strumpf and Paris’s Galerie Anne-Laure Buffard. Next year, Nino Mier will mount a second solo exhibition for the artist in New York.
—Maxwell Rabb, Staff Writer
B. 1976, Springfield, Ohio. Lives and works in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Joya Mukerjee Logue treats her paintings as a visual diary, capturing scenes such as bustling nighttime bazaars or clusters of conversing women. Raised in Ohio by an Indian American family, she merges her experience of Midwestern domestic life with South Asian cultural memory, creating portraits that read as both personal records and collective stories.
A selection of such works stood out in Rajiv Menon Contemporary’s booth at Untitled Art, Houston last month. They featured figures in near-darkness, their gestures charged with quiet intensity. In Tala’s Roses (2025), a woman with a worried look on her face clutches a bouquet close to her chest. Storytellers (2024) shows a circle of women leaning toward one another, their configuration suggesting ghost stories told around a campfire. Soft brushwork and earthy tones make these works gentle and inviting.
Logue studied at Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana. She has exhibited internationally at High Line Nine Gallery in New York, Cromwell Place in London, and the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati.
— Maxwell Rabb, Staff Writer
B. 1994, Shanghai. Lives and works in New York.
Inspired by the ancient wisdom of Taoism—which emphasizes the importance of human harmony with nature—Shu Hua Xiong captures the beauty of simple objects in glistening, ethereal paintings. Xiong started her career as a brand designer at Google before pivoting to illustration, earning commissions for the New York Times and Tiffany & Co. with her glistening, airbrushed style. Now, as a painter, she uses her signature palette of calming pastel hues to capture the spiritual elements of the natural world.
At her debut show at island in New York, on view through October 11th, her subjects include a rain-drenched leaf, a pale egg, and a nautilus shell. These natural elements are portrayed with the careful reverence of Renaissance still lifes, with solid-colored backgrounds that deepen the focus on the central subject. Elsewhere in the show, works like Hilma (all works 2025) contain traces of Xiong’s airbrushed illustration style. This effervescent blue canvas subtly evokes an angel’s wings—a theme the artist returns to in other paintings, such as Prayers. In Xiong’s hands, this mythological motif appears dazzling, shimmering with light.
Xiong’s show at island is her second solo outing, following her debut at Almost Perfect in Tokyo last year. She has previously presented works in group shows at New York galleries including island, Allouche Gallery, and IRL Gallery. Xiong holds a BFA and MFA from School of Visual Arts, New York.
—Josie Thaddeus-Johns, Senior Editor
B. 1995, Zhongshan, China. Lives and works in New York.
Through blurred city lights as seen from car windows and slices of neon signs, dreamy new paintings by Leon Xu evoke fleeting nocturnal encounters and half-remembered impressions. These glimpses make up “𝒜𝒻𝓉𝑒𝓇𝑔𝓁𝑜𝓌,” the Chinese artist’s second solo show with Zurich tastemaker Mai 36 Galerie, on view through November 1st. Xu drew inspiration from Martin Scorsese’s cult classic After Hours (1985), reinterpreting images from the film, which follows one man’s night of increasingly bizarre encounters in New York. The artist’s blurred, glowing scenes carry a similar sense of disorientation and intensity.
Moments here feel as though they pass quickly but linger emotionally. This is manifest in Back to my fantasy (2025), where a luminous sign reading “amusements” beams out from a murky window; the title of the work suggests revisiting an imagined state, nodding to a tension between what is real and what is remembered.
Xu studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and received his BFA in fine art from the University of Pennsylvania in 2019. He has shown in group presentations at Karma, Capsule Shanghai, and Seoul’s Worship Gallery, and has had solo shows at New York galleries Whaam! and Helena Anrather.
—Arun Kakar, Senior Art Market Editor
