Artnet News: The Class of 2022: Meet 6 Fast-Rising Artists Having Star Turns at This Year’s Art Basel Miami Beach

From an Ivorian-American who works with paper towels to a post-internet artist getting a posthumous spotlight, here's who to watch.

Artnet News, November 29, 2022

Ready or not, Art Basel Miami Beach is upon us and the 20th anniversary edition of the fair in the U.S. promises to be filled with star-studded events, as well as plenty of ascendent talent to scout.

At this year’s Miami art week, there are plenty of artists who deserve your attention, but we narrowed it down to six upstarts whose careers we believe are primed to reach new heights. So whether you’re in the throes of JOMO or already starting to feel the FOMO for Art Basel, here’s a primer on the work you definitely can’t miss out on.

Teresa Baker (b. 1985)

Teresa Baker, Found in Layers, (2022). Photo by Jacob Phillip, courtesy of the artist and de boer, Los Angeles.

Who:  An enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes in Western North Dakota, Teresa Baker pays tribute to her upbringing while infusing her practice with a modern aesthetic. She transforms synthetic materials into artwork that underscores irregular territorial shapes. 

Based in: Los Angeles, California

Notable Resume Lines: Baker is a 2022 Joan Mitchell Fellow and her works have recently been acquired by the Portland Museum of Art in Maine, and the Whitney Museum of American Art and Forge Project in New York. She has had recent solo exhibitions at de boer, Los Angeles; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Arizona; Pied-à-terre gallery in San Francisco; Interface Gallery in Oakland; the Art Museum of Southeast Texas in Beaumont, Texas; and Gray Contemporary, Houston.

Where to See It: David de Boer Gallery is dedicating a solo presentation to Baker at NADA. She will also take part in the fair’s “NADA Presents” talk series with a discussion on Thursday, December 1, at 3:30 p.m., followed by a reception in the booth.

What to Look Out for: The booth will include an installation of contemporary willow baskets and hanging works created with yarn, paint, artificial turf, beads, bark, buckskin, and corn husks that draw from associations both real and imagined. The center of the display is a large-scale, wall-hung abstraction. The materials, texture, shapes, and colors are guided by Baker’s Mandan/Hidatsa culture. The artist spent her childhood in nature with sites that doubled as historical places meant for tourism, but which also sparked discussion around the erasure of the native cultures there.

Prices: $9,000 to $25,000

Fun Fact: Baker was born in North Dakota and spent her formative years moving around the Midwest, where her father was the first American Indian Superintendent of National Parks like Little Bighorn Battlefield, Chickasaw National Recreation Area, Lewis and Clark Trail, and Mount Rushmore. He involved the local tribes from wherever they lived.

Up Next: A group show at Ballroom Marfa, large scale installation at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, and a second solo at de boer, Los Angeles in 2023.

—Eileen Kinsella