The artists to see next year
Computer-generated landscapes, enamelled and jewel-encrusted paintings of mythological scenes, and theatrically staged photographs from three promising artists are set to be big news in 2005
TOBY ZIEGLER
The work of 32-year-old, Southwark-based Ziegler was one of the highlights of the Royal Academy's recent show of new art, Expander. His painted renditions of computer-generated images of landscapes, applied to Scotchbrite, a shiny, synthetic fabric used for workwear, instead of canvas, are oddly inviting windows into an apparently clean and perfectly ordered world.
His first major solo show, Enter Desire at the Chisenhale Gallery, E3, in February will excite critics and collectors still further.
RAQIB SHAW
Like Chris Ofili, his stablemate at the Victoria Miro Gallery, Shaw is as much a fabricator as a painter, constructing beautifully seductive, enamelled and jewel-encrusted paintings of fantastical mythological scenes whose aesthetic draws on his upbringing in Kashmir among carpet-makers and jewellers.
After a sell-out solo show in London in 2004, Shaw, 29, and a Royal College of Art graduate, will be showing in New York this year and is likely to add an international dimension to his impressive London reputation.
JUSTIN COOMBES
Ruskin and Goldsmiths graduate Justin Coombes, 27, exemplifies the trend of young artists focusing on the theatrical, the aesthetic and the symbolic. His staged photographs echo the work of Americans Gregory Crewdson and Jeff Wall while recalling the richness of post-war British art in their layered literary and cultural references.
A solo show of his most ambitious project to date, Bacchanalia, is scheduled for late 2005 and should bring his work to wider attention.
