Jason Innocent

The young artist from Brooklyn has stood out for his deconstruction of textual language to address social and political issues from a satirical perspective. His versatility has allowed him to work with urban art, drawing, video art, and recently, the documentary. His art lies between the limits of political and conceptual art. The relationship between image and text has crossed all of his works. Aesthetically, he has developed a style that reminds us of the childlike and spontaneous character of Basquiat or the Brut Artists, due to the simplification of his compositions. Far from the artifices of the hegemonic discourse of the fine arts, Jason prioritizes transmitting a message.

Despite being self-taught, the artist has felt connected to art since his childhood. Inspired by children's characters he began drawing them at the young age of 5. The artistic spirit of New York and the cultural crossroads of the neighborhood in which he grew up was also a great influence on his aspirations as an artist. His artistic career has been meteoric. Jason has made a name for himself in recent years with his graffiti and stencils that he has recorded all over the streets of New York. In fact, he is considered the youngest African-American artist to own two different thematic works. We are talking about "Egomaniac Trump", an intervention in the public space against Donald Trump's candidacy, and "39 Drawings", a book containing drawings and phrases he made throughout his youth.

You can find him: https://www.jasoninnocent.com/

Filippo Citterio

Also known as Barteu, he is an emerging artist born in Milan, Italy, and based in Paris, who has created a unique technique. His abstract works are inevitably reminiscent of the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock and Shozo Shimamoto, merging action painting with the technique of Flair Bartending. The artist worked for 10 years as a bartender and his curiosity has led him to experiment and cross his two passions. Although he works mainly on canvas, he has used the stencil to capture his art in urban space.

Like action painting artists, the creative process is a fundamental part of his work. As if it were an act of performance, the artist mixes the acrylics in a bottle and then impacts directly on the canvas. As a result, he obtains colorful compositions that register the intensity of his corporeal movements. The latter also places him as an artist of gestural painting. Therefore, his works are crossed by the factor of chance and spontaneity. In other words, the artist does not control the final result. Without a doubt, Barteu offers innovation and his style is based on experimentation with materials and techniques that are not conventional in the art world.

You can find him: https://www.barteu.com/

LECH

The Puerto Rico-based visual artist has excelled in juxtaposing urban art, contemporary art, and her family's cultural traditions. The protagonists of her works are colorful masks of Puerto Rican carnival folklore that she manipulates. The incorporation of the masks has as objective the diffusion and the preservation of a patrimony that little remains. Usually, the artist creates particular characters to represent these pieces.

She also uses unconventional and poor materials such as paper and cardboard or found objects. Influenced by the philosophy of povera art, she also builds an ethic based on recycling and opposed to capitalist consumerism. It also starts with the concept that art is present in everyone and that it can be anything. LECH has taken an interest in the academic approach. Her artistic research focuses on the recovery of Puerto Rico's cultural history, which has been built up through word of mouth. For this reason, her artistic work is of great value, beyond the fact that visually it is very attractive.

You can find her: https://www.instagram.com/lech.masks/

TIDES

The visual artist born in Tokyo combines Japanese pop culture and pop art in his oil paintings. Far from the intense colors that are usually used in this subject, TIDES represents his characters in black and white, transmitting melancholy. He manages to obtain such expressiveness through the textures of the objects and the play between the shadows. Despite the tenderness of his creatures, his images are deep and often appeal to sadness.

Part of his thematic references is based on mythological characters from traditional Japanese culture. The artist balances two worlds that seem irreconcilable: the conservative tradition of Japan and the openness of the country in contact with the contemporary world. Usually, the protagonists of his paintings are fictitious like a small anthropomorphic cat. TIDES represents them with the typical round eyes of animé and with the aesthetics of the classic Disney cartoons. Visually, the monochrome of his paintings is also reminiscent of early surrealist movies.

You can find him: https://www.instagram.com/idetatsuhiro/

Bobby Lesh

The emerging artist based in Bangkok, Thailand, has captured the attention of the contemporary art scene at a young age. His digital paintings usually feature lonely kids with melancholy expression and a mysterious dark atmosphere despite the pastel colors he uses. Their facial expressiveness conveys a naivety that plays with the complex hidden meanings that agitate the viewers. The visual references are related to Bobby's interest in manga and video games. On the other hand, his ability to create three-dimensional shapes digitally can be compared to James Jean's complex compositions.

His works reflect the loneliness and coldness of human relations in contemporary society, which is crossed by technologies. But also, Bobby's art is closely related to his upbringing. He lived in a conservative culture where freedom is limited. Although he had reduced access to academic education, this did not prevent the artist from finding in art a refuge to express himself. In this way, throughout his adolescence, he built a unique style. From his own vision of reality, the artist creates an absurd but highly introspective universe.

You can find him: http://www.bobbyleash.com/