Art Market
At Artsy, we often see demand rise for artists who receive features in major publications, open high-profile institutional shows, participate in major art fairs, or hit other career milestones. These key moments lead to a surge in inquiries or an influx of interested notes from collectors to galleries on our platform. In other cases, demand builds more gradually, as collectors encounter artists’ work through curatorial conversations or sustained visibility.
Here, we share the top 10 artists who received the strongest year-over-year surges in artwork inquiries (from January to November) on Artsy in 2025.
Increase in inquiries: 2940%
David Lynch, who passed away in January, forged one of the most distinctive sensibilities in American cinema: His surreal, disquieting worldview even gave rise to the adjective “Lynchian.” Across films including Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, and Mulholland Drive, the director infused dream logic and psychological unease into the mainstream.
Lynch’s passing spurred renewed attention in both his art and his cinematic oeuvre. Lynch sustained a rigorous, multimedia studio practice throughout his life. He, in fact, started his career as a painter, attending two art schools before studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and then dropping out. Lynch’s visual art mirrors the same dark, ethereal sensibilities as his films. Sperone Westwater showed his work in 2019, in an exhibition titled “Squeaky Flies in the Mud.” Pace Gallery followed with “Big Bongo Night”in 2022.
Increase in inquiries: 1350%
Faceless figures wander Guim Tió Zarraluki’s serene, dreamlike landscape paintings. In 2010, he first drew attention for reworking fashion photography subjects into uncanny, wide-eyed portraits. Today, his paintings favor thick impasto and softened features, creating tender and disorienting scenes. Not only does Zarraluki have a rapidly growing Instagram following (with 229,000 followers), the artist has also gained traction from galleries and collectors alike. Zarraluki was featured in Alzueta Gallery’s booth at the Armory Show in September—the same month he was featured in Artsy’s Artists on Our Radar. This followed shortly after the artist presented a solo exhibition at Paris’s Ruttkowski;68 in March. The artist has also shown with Madrid’s Coleccion SOLO and Montreal’s Patel Brown.
Increase in inquiries: 1210%
British painter Danny Fox spent his early years squatting in London’s Brixton neighborhood, working odd jobs to afford paint and brushes. In 2013, when he was 27, he presented his first solo show at Plumbline Gallery in St. Ives, England. He quickly became one of the most in-demand young British artists—perhaps buoyed this year by a Vogue feature from March. Fox’s figurative paintings feature subjects ranging from bird watchers to lounging couples rendered with brushy, expressive lines. They often include charged symbols, such as a crescent moon or a bull’s head, that appear as spiritual talismans. Fox is currently represented by Saatchi Yates in London and V1 Gallery in Copenhagen. In April, the Levinsky Gallery at the University of Plymouth presented the artist’s first institutional show in the U.K. before London’s Hannah Barry Gallery mounted Fox’s exhibition, “BIG LOVE BABY,” in October.
Increase in inquiries: 710%
Baltimore-based painter Amy Sherald skyrocketed to international stardom after unveiling her official portrait of Michelle Obama in 2018. She has since played a key role in expanding the visibility of Black subjects in contemporary portraiture. This year, Sherald made headlines when she canceled her solo show at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, citing concerns over censorship. The work in question, Trans Forming Liberty (2024), depicted a transgender woman posed like the Statue of Liberty. The Smithsonian was going to edit it out of the show. The traveling exhibition, “American Sublime,” was organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and was on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art this past summer. Sherald is represented by Hauser & Wirth.
Increase in inquiries: 685%
Sun-drenched flowers, half-eaten plates of food, and towers of books fill Hilary Pecis’s luscious, detail-rich still lifes. The artist works in a soft, naturalistic palette and uses light and color to build intimate and meticulously observed scenes inspired by her life in California. Pecis is currently presenting a solo show at Crown Point Press in San Francisco, on through January 7, 2026. In June, she also mounted “Wandering,” a solo exhibition in London with her representing gallery Timothy Taylor. She was also featured in “Dine In,” a food-centric group exhibition at Buffalo AKG Art Museum in Buffalo, New York. Pecis is also on the roster of David Kordansky Gallery. The 46-year-old painter was the subject of solo exhibitions at China’s TAG Art Museum in 2023 and the Rockefeller Center in New York in 2021.
Increase in inquiries: 684%
In her nineties, Colombian artist Olga de Amaral experienced a meteoric late-career rise for her monumental wool, horsehair, and gold tapestries. These works evoke massive stone walls and glistening, suspended mosaics, among other transcendent forms. Earlier this year, Paris’s Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain staged the artist’s first European retrospective, which closed on March 16th. The now 93-year-old artist has presented solo shows at Lisson Gallery in London and New York. De Amaral was also the subject of a traveling U.S. retrospective in 2021—at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Cranbrook Art Museum—and was featured in the 60th Venice Biennale exhibition in 2024.
Increase in inquiries: 682%
American artist Wes Lang is known for expressionistic drawings and paintings that feature skulls, skeletal figures, angels, and handwritten declarations. Rendered in graphite, ink, and paint, these images borrow from the directness of tattoo flash and religious illustration to examine belief, mortality, and controversial American imagery, from Native American stereotypes and Confederate flags, intended to confront the underbelly of American history. The often provocative artist has collaborated with Kanye West and The Grateful Dead. He has presented solo exhibitions with Almine Rech, his representing gallery, in New York, Aspen, and Paris. His work is held in major institutional collections, including those of the Museum of Modern Art. Much of the buzz for Lang’s work has been concentrated toward the end of the year. In November, Chicago’s Anthony Gallery opened a two-person show with Lang and Eddie Martinez. At the same time, Lyon’s Galerie Masurel opened “The good you do will follow you,” a duo exhibition by Lang and Julien Jaca.
Increase in inquiries: 646%
Brooklyn-based Japanese artist Sho Shibuya approaches painting as a daily act of marking time. Shibuya is best known for “The Sunrise from a Small Window,” an ongoing series featuring luminous color fields painted over the front page of the New York Times. These abstract paintings are inspired by the gradients of the morning sky. “My visual diary is my way of preserving time,” he told Yokogao Magazine. The year started out in the spotlight for Shibuya. The artist partnered with German airline Lufthansa to create first-class loungewear. In October, Bienvenu Steinberg & C mounted a solo exhibition for the artist, “Freedom of Speech.” In recent years, he has presented solo shows with Plus 81 Gallery in New York and Unit in London.
Increase in inquiries: 573%
Through meticulously staged, color-saturated photos, Dean West emphasizes photography’s role as an act of construction rather than documentation. The Australian artist, who now lives in the United States, draws on ideas of place and identity. In works such as Luis the Wrangler #1 (2024), he photographs a shirtless alligator wrangler in a cowboy hat, a scene that underscores how masculinity is performed. As West recently wrote on Instagram, where he has nearly 100,000 followers, “I’m interested in how we construct lifestyle—how we present ourselves.” In 2025, West has focused on expanding his “American West” series and participating in several high-profile international art fairs, including Moderne Art Fair in Paris.
Increase in inquiries: 408%
Artsy Vanguard 2019 alum Derek Fordjour creates multimedia portraits by layering surfaces of newspaper, cardboard, and paint into richly textured compositions. His colorful, often geometric works center Black life through scenes of everyday ritual and collective experience. Fordjour’s first U.K. solo exhibition opened at Josh Lilley in London in 2019, followed by a major museum show at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis in 2020. He is represented by Petzel, which featured the artist in its Art Basel Miami Beach booth, and David Kordansky Gallery. This year started strong for Fordjour. In January, it was announced he was the recipient of the 2025 Gordon Parks Foundation Artist Fellowship. In September, Kordansky staged its second solo exhibition for the artist, “Nightsong,” in Los Angeles. Earlier this month, the artist also revealed a new massive mural, featuring two uniformed Black drum majors, on the High Line in New York.
