Emerging Artists to Watch This Year

The contemporary art world is constantly introducing new voices, techniques, and perspectives. Every year, emerging artists bring fresh ideas to galleries, museums, biennials, and art fairs, often challenging familiar assumptions about what contemporary art can be.

In 2026, artists working across painting, video, sculpture, textiles, installation, photography, and digital media are attracting attention. Rather than following one dominant style, many are combining different disciplines and exploring subjects such as identity, memory, technology, migration, family, and the environment.

Here are several emerging artists whose work is receiving attention this year.

Bagus Pandega

Indonesian artist Bagus Pandega works with light, sound, electronics, and installation. His practice explores relationships between technology, nature, and human perception.

Artnet included Pandega among artists it identified as poised to gain wider attention in 2026, highlighting the way his work connects technological systems with environmental and social questions.

Dala Nasser

Dala Nasser works across experimental film, sound, painting, installation, and research. Her multidisciplinary approach allows her to explore memory, place, history, and cultural identity through different forms.

Ocula selected Nasser as one of its artists to watch for 2026, noting the development of her practice toward increasingly painterly work alongside her broader experimental methods.

Marcos Kueh

Sarawak-born and Netherlands-based artist Marcos Kueh uses textiles to explore history, identity, craft, and contemporary culture.

His installations combine embroidery, found textiles, research, and theatrical environments. Ocula highlighted his growing international profile, including institutional exhibitions and a major commissioned project scheduled for Hong Kong in 2026.

Erin Jane Nelson

Erin Jane Nelson works across photography, ceramics, textiles, collage, and found objects. Photography remains central to her practice, but she frequently combines photographic images with physical materials and craft traditions.

Her work connects internet culture, personal history, photography, and Southern U.S. visual culture. In 2026, she is also presenting new work as part of the Whitney Biennial.

YoungEun Kim

South Korean artist YoungEun Kim creates video essays and sound-based works that examine language, migration, memory, and cultural experience.

Her practice demonstrates how sound can become a major storytelling device in contemporary art. Ocula notes that Kim received the 2026 ACC Future Prize and was shortlisted for the Korea Artist Prize.

Artists to Explore at Frieze New York

Major art fairs can also provide a useful introduction to emerging artists.

Frieze New York's 2026 Focus section highlighted artists including Abraham González Pacheco and Aki Goto. Pacheco explores alternative memories, ancestry, and collective histories, while Goto combines family video with sculptural installations and everyday domestic objects.

Why Emerging Artists Matter

Following emerging artists is about more than discovering the next major gallery name.

New artists can reveal where contemporary culture is heading. They often experiment with unfamiliar materials, combine disciplines, and respond to social or technological changes in ways that established artistic traditions may not.

For audiences, that makes emerging art particularly interesting. You may encounter photography combined with ceramics, video presented as an installation, traditional textiles used to discuss contemporary life, or interactive technology used for historical storytelling.