Eight Artists to Watch and Buy in 2023

Art is everything to us, so we thought we’d take the time to introduce you to some more affordable artists… some starting out, others further along their artistic path. All at the top of their game.

We love to follow galleries, art prizes and artists on Instagram so when a talent jumps out and grabs us by our heart, well, we just want to share! We love the way a treasured artwork can express a story, capture a moment or feel through an emotion. And to purchase a painting and hang it on our wall is to inspire our every day, to add beauty and interest to our lives ongoing. Buying art can also be an investment, so we’ve brought you a list of artists we’re loving right now, artists who are still in that affordable, take-a-chance category.

We’ve pitched our little list at artists whose work you can still purchase for less than $10k with a couple still selling under the $5k mark, so if you are thinking about investing in art and supporting professional artists, but don’t quite know where to start, this little list should help you on our way. The trick is to buy what you love, what you connect to, what makes your heart sing. It’s time to add some wonder to your walls!

Rockyrun, Ben Waters

Ben Waters

Currently exhibiting at Michael Reid Gallery in Sydney (until 28 January) with a suite of large, earthy works titled Shared Places, Water’s landscape anchored works evoke the Barrenjoey Headlands and Pittwater surrounds he knows well, ‘Bright, warm and quintessentially Australian, paintings from this exhibition offer a considered introduction the artist’s thoughtful treatment of the painted landscape.’

For us it’s the unexpected palette, the intriguing composition and the thoughtful line work coupled with his unique, pared back, almost graphic style that’s both architectural and unexpectedly layered. / MORE

Full Moon And Grevilleas Elim-Beach 2021, Sam Field

Sam Field

Sam Field holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Tasmania and won the Contemporary Arts Tasmania Prize back in 2016.

On first viewing, Field’s obvious love of Sidney Nolan and the narrative style of Boyd et al feels a little derivative but on delving deeper, we see he is consciously borrowing and reworking to create comment on Australia’s culture and history.

His work is described by Briony Downes in Art Guide Australia as ‘colonialist postcards from a post-apocalyptic Australian landscape. His terrains are assembled by combining national logos and images – from vintage Channel Nine logos and football teams, to Blundstone boots and lyrebirds.’

Field has a long-held fascination with colonialism and both the ideology and inevitability of imperialism. By his own admission, he doesn’t know what he is painting until he is layers deep, and we love that strategy. We find his unique style emotional, eclectic and dynamic. / MORE

The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, Nicholas Osmond

Nicholas Osmond

‘Nicholas Osmond draws from his embedded connection to place around his home in Moree in northern NSW. Only new to painting, over the last three years he has been prolifically honing his practice. Anchored by his intuitive sense of colour and guided by emotion, he works the surface to achieve unity of colour. He sees himself as an observer, painting past and current narratives in Australian history.’ – Artist Profile by Lucy Stranger

For us, Ormond’s quirky-as-hell works are a real breath of fresh air. They’re funny, they’re enchanting, his juxtaposition of colour is just so intuitive, and his subject matter is nostalgic with an unexpected layering of meaning that sneaks up. And always, that sense of humour. We’re predicting big things and he’s definitely one to watch! / MORE

Looking Through Edward Kolety River, Wendy McDonald

Wendy McDonald

For artist and farmer Wendy McDonald her creative life would struggle to exist away from the property, near the Murray River in Southwest NSW. The mixed farm on Thule Lagoon feeds inspiration for Wendy’s painting and printmaking by providing a true sense of how the landscape works. She admits she couldn’t be an artist without being a farmer and vice versa - that one could not function without the other. Her work draws from the ecology of the local environment, the ebb and flow of the creeks and rivers and the dramatic changes of the seasons.

She’s been a finalist in numerous awards including The NSW Parliament Plein Air Painting Prize (2016,2017 & 2018), the Paddington Art Prize, The Calleen Art Prize and The Swan Hill Print & Drawing Acquisitive Prize. For us, she is up there with the greats of this expressionistic landscape genre, the gentleness of her palette and the soulful connection to her subject, the land in and around her, it’s truly something to behold. / MORE

Damaged Goods, Marie Mansfield

Marie Mansfield

Winner of the Portia Geach prize in 2021, Marie Mansfield’s work is observational. Whether her subject is a landscape, a person or a still life, her intention is to catch a moment that tells a story.  As a tonalist, the artist uses a subdued, limited palette to evoke an emotive response, drawing on everyday objects, situations and environments.

Mansfield’s work includes a personal response to the physical and psychological. Her ‘landscapes explore the sublime vastness of nature with its force and fluctuations. Her portraits capture the essence of her subjects' character within a moment.’

"I would like to investigate and develop ideas around the theme of unease. I'm interested in the appeal, the psychology behind it and why it's compelling" – Marie Mansfield

 Mansfield holds a Bachelor of Design in Visual Communication and a Post Graduate Diploma in painting from the National Art School, Sydney. / MORE

 

Cake Chair, Vanessa Stockard

Vanessa Stockard

A favourite of ours for some years now, it’s hard to describe Stockard’s charming and whimsical style but it is truly special and sometimes hilarious.

She says of herself,

‘I paint from a head full of imagery. From a lifetime of watching and looking at the world, filing away the small beauties, the absurdities, the injustices, the delicacies and then allowing my subconscious to somehow conjure these similes up in the studio, often years later.’

 ‘….my paintings are based on how I see life. Life is beautiful in so many ways, and yet hard and sad for many people, like the drifters and the outsiders. I often try to soften the pathos and sadness I see in the world by adding some comic relief to my paintings. Otherwise I feel we’d all fall in a hole…..’

What more can we say, her work is delicate, light-full and just pure magic! / MORE

A Thousand Echoes, Danielle Creenaune

Danielle Creenaune

We wanted to include some beautiful print work on our list this year and print maker Danielle Creenaune’s work makes our hearts beat just that little bit faster.

“Danielle Creenaune’s work occupies a liminal zone between abstraction and representation, where the experience of a place, rather than a literal rendition of landscape feeds her creative practice. Wind-swept and gestural, the artist distills the essence of her subject through reductive marks made confidently on lithographic plates, which through the alchemy of printmaking are released onto paper.” – Marguerite Brown MA ArtCur, General Manager Print Council of Australia Inc.

Having lived abroad for the last 18 years, Australian born artist, Danielle Creenaune, worked out of her print studio in Barcelona and recently she returned to live in Australia in 2019. Her central motivation “is the intrinsic dialogue between landscape and people, how landscape is perceived through our library of pre-lived experiences and the ways in which this is reflected through the visual language of gesture.”

Her work has received numerous awards internationally and is held in public collections including the National Gallery of Australia. She completed a Bachelor and a Master of Art at the University of New South Wales, Sydney in 1997. / MORE

The Feelings Mutual, Lauren Tausend

Lauren Tausend

Lauren Tausend is a textile based artist and designer from Melbourne, Australia with a focus on the process of story-telling through traditionally craft based practices. Craft and predominantly knitting play a huge part in her connection to family and home and is the inspiration for her exploration of textiles. Tausend loves the accessibility of craft and her goal is to push those ideas to a place which intersects with art and design.

Completing a degree in Textile Design at RMIT in 2015, her work has an organic and playful approach with a strong connection to the handmade.

Growing up in country Victoria, Tausend is always desperate to escape the city and return to the bush and the coast. Taking inspiration from the texture and movement of the landscape and our interactions within that space. / MORE

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In case you missed our last list, it’s here.

BY JENNINE PRIMMER