6 Artists You Don’t Know About (but Should)

published Feb 14, 2016
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Today we’re taking a look at six contemporary artists you may not have heard of, artists whose work pushes the boundaries of their media and looks not quite like anything you’ve seen before.

Katharine Morling creates these incredibly detailed sculptures of everyday items from clay, each detail more breathtaking than the last. in her distinct style, these quotidian objects seem simultaneously more and less real, drawing you into a strange and fascinating alternate world. (If you can’t get enough of her work and want to have it in your home, you can purchase smaller editions here.) Images via The Jealous Curator.

British artist Sophie Smallhorn works in a variety of media, but my favorite pieces of hers are her sculptures, which have a colorful, playful quality, almost like a child’s toy.

Matt Waples plays with color and light in a multitude of ways. For these ‘photographic paintings’, he took photos and then applied liquids to the film before developing, which resulted in a chemical reaction that products a translucent, painterly effect.

Jennie Jieun Lee is a ceramicist who works in Brooklyn. Her pieces, including ceramic masks and vessels anointed with layers of glaze, have a wild, exuberant quality. She’s also created a series called Glazemoods, which allwas you to bring her work home in the form of mugs or platters.

German sculptor Herbert Hamak creates pieces made of colorful resin, which filter light in unusual and interesting ways. Some of his installations are applied to the surfaces of historical buildings, creating a playful contrast between the artwork and its surroundings and inviting you to see the building in a new way.

South Korean artist Il Lee creates works of abstract art with fascinating complexity using only ballpoint pens. (Some of his later works, the ones on the darker backgrounds, are created with acrylic on canvas.) Perhaps the most impressive thing about his work is its scale: it’s easy to imagine gazing at one of his piece and losing yourself in its inscrutable depths.