Five Modern Day Artists You Need to Know

Heather Lewin
Sep 6, 2018 · 4 min read

It is difficult to name individuals who have been best shaping and inspiring the art world. The continuing explosion of interest in modern art has led to more artists working with energy and excitement. It is a daunting task but still, we have compiled a few artists whose works have been a ubiquitous and certain impact on artistic production.

Pierre Huyghe

Pierre Huyghe was born on September 11, 1962, in Paris, France. He studied at École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. The French artist works on films, sculpture, developed ecosystems, fictional characters, music, drawings, and photographs. He creates masterpieces, working in various disciplines, centering his art upon the importance of the image as a semiotic device. His images are interconnected, so his projects are viewed as a whole, exploring audience expectations. Construction sites existing in some of his works display his practice, being focused on the audiences’ distinctive ability to create. Huyghe’s work demonstrates that everything needs to part of a unity to exist, nothing can exist in isolation. An object is attributed and identified because of the structure it is tied to.

Huyghe has been exhibited at various international solo exhibitions and has been participating in international art shows including Documenta XI, the Carnegie International, the Biennale d’Art Contemporain de Lyon and many more. He has won many awards including the Nasher Prize, Kurt Schwitters Prize, Roswitha Haftmann Award, and a DAAD to name a few.

Camille Henrot

Camille Henrot is a 1978 born French artist residing and working in New York. Her work includes drawing, sculpture, assemblage and video installation. She received her first major solo exhibition in Paris, in 2017. An exhibition that divided up the 64,500-square-foot space into seven sections for its theme, “Days are Dogs” to randomly assemble how people ritualize their lives and mark time. Her career escalated when she won the Silver Lion award at the Venice Biennale in 2013, for her video Grosse Fatigue.

Henrot is famous for her emotional and essayistic multimedia works. She has won awards including Edvard Munch Award, Nam June Paik Award and Finalist for Hugo Boss Award.

Gheorghe Virtosu

Gheorghe Virtosu was born on April 14, 1968, in the Republic of Moldova. He is a self-taught contemporary artist and writer. After graduation, Gheorghe took physical training and ended up in the military service, which he had pictured for himself. He turned out to be a resilient character and tackled all other life challenges head-on. Gheorghe resigned from the military after the collapse of the Communist system in USSR and went abroad looking for a new life, finally settling in London.

Gheorghe’s paintings are abstract, thematic paintings that feature bold colors in pursuit of a mystical ascension above the ugliness of the world. His images are a result of his experiences. His paintings are his ways of rebelling against injustice and failure of integrity occurring in the world. His creativity is not just limited to paintings. He has written A Little Frog’s Heart, a book for children of all ages, spanning over 85 volumes, out of which 10 have been published in more than 10 languages. Gheorghe’s another book A Game Called Loneliness, is available in multiple languages too. His ideas and characters come to life in his writings and paintings.

Odd Nerdrum

Odd Nerdrum was born on April 8, 1944, in Sweden. He studied in Rudolf Steiner School and since school times exhibited an innate talent. He studied at the Art Academy of Oslo but was not satisfied with the direction of modern art. He began teaching himself painting in a Neo-Baroque style with the direction of Rembrandt’s technique and work as a primary influence.

Nerdrum is a figurative painter and the themes and style of his work reference anecdote and narrative. He places his work in direct conflict with the abstraction and conceptual art considered acceptable in much of his native Norway. He creates six to eight paintings in a year including still life paintings of tiny everyday objects like bricks, portraits of large paintings that are allegorical and apocalyptic in nature.

April Coppini

April Coppini was born in Rochester, New York. She received her BFA from Alfred University, School of Arts in printmaking and drawing. She has a wonderful handling of charcoal. Her art, mostly animals and insects is transformative. She records nature in its rawest form, attempting to remind people of the world they live in. Her work in effect is something minor and essential made much larger. Coppini began selling her drawings and paintings in 2005. Her work is inspired by her kids, the vastness of the west, books, and gardens and she is enchanted by the energy associated with living creatures and their predicament and life in things. She combines both dark and messy elements by mixing charcoal layers with purposeful eraser strokes.