Discovering an emerging or lesser-known artist at a mega-fair like Art Basel and Frieze has at times felt like searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Established galleries—and the bold-faced (and bankable) names they come to show off—generally take up the lion’s share of real estate, while upstart galleries are confined to the periphery. There’s a reason why DIY dealer-led invitationals have emerged in waves parallel to the global ascent of the major fair players: No one wants their booth to feel like an asterisk to the main event.
In recent years, however, Art Basel and Frieze have made sizable efforts to shine a light on rising talent. This week at Art Basel Paris, 16 galleries will present solo booths in the Emergence sector, which is dedicated to young artists; six previous Emergence exhibitors will graduate to the main sector; and more than 30 of the 211 galleries represented are less than a decade old. Spending time on the Grand Palais’s balcony level, where the Emergence sector reigns, will ensure you encounter an array of fresh voices—from Lorenza Longhi, who’s showing a security camera hidden in a gift bag at Oskar Weiss, to Drake Carr, who will paint a fresco of his polychrome figures on the walls at Mariposa’s booth. And when you make your way through the maze of midsize galleries and mainstays below, make sure to stop a dealer and ask who they’re most excited to bring to the fair—it might just be a new discovery.
To give you a head start on the search for your next favorite artist, we sifted through each gallery’s offerings to identify five individuals, 45 or younger, who are poised to break out or expand their momentum during the fair this year. Moka Lee and Asma Belhamar are making sense of a society evolving at a dizzying speed through mediums as old as painting and ceramics. Nat Faulkner is going deep on the science behind the art of photography. Yu Nishimura’s quietly introspective canvases are making noise across the industry. And Ibrahim Mahama, who has made work about labor, craft, and value to wide acclaim for over a decade, is vying for the attention of European and American art lovers for whom he might not yet be a household name.
We spoke to each artist before the fair’s opening to VVIPs on Oct. 20 to see what led them to the Grand Palais.
Moka Lee
Age: 30
Based in: Seoul
Showing at: Carlos/Ishikawa
Why They’re Worth a Look: The classically trained painter trawls social media to source images for her uneasy portraits and still-lifes, immortalizing her subjects’ coquettish pouts, flashed peace signs, and empty stares in oil paint. Lee’s inquiries into the “surface tension” of our digitized selfhoods, rendered in a palette akin to the stages of bruising, have garnered her sustained attention from the Internet and beyond. This past year alone, she was nominated to Forbes Korea’s 30 Under 30 list and opened her first U.S. solo with David Kordansky; her solo booth with Carlos/Ishikawa is the first time her work is shown in France.
When did you first see yourself as an artist?
Around 2018, during my third year of college [at Sejong University in Seoul]. I was spending a lot of time in my studio, trying to find my own language as a painter. I had been trained in drawing, primarily with pencil and watercolor, but it was in college that I began working seriously with oil paint. I was interested in finding beauty in the things around me and figuring out how to translate what I saw onto a canvas. I remember making a painting called Night Flash and Girls. When I finished it, I felt that it contained all the elements I had been looking for in my work. I still have that painting today.
What do you make art for, and what do you make art against?
I make art for myself, first and foremost. I have my own standards for what I consider a good painting, and I paint because I want to satisfy those standards. I also make art for my family. Painting is what I do for a living, and it allows me to provide for the people I love. I think that is an equally honest answer. I do not think I make art against anything in particular.
Where did the body of work you are showing at Art Basel Paris begin?
The five paintings I am presenting at Art Basel Paris are extensions of ideas and subjects I have been exploring since the beginning of my career. Although they belong to different series, they are connected by my ongoing interest in the relationship between the self, the ego, and the persona we construct and present to the world. These are subjects I have returned to repeatedly, often through different kinds of imagery.
For Paris, however, I wanted to approach these ideas with a more conscious consideration of art history. Paris has an extraordinary relationship with the history of painting, and I was thinking about that context while making these works. I wanted the paintings to remain recognizably my own, while also placing them in conversation with the paintings and painters who came before me.
What went into making this work?
It is difficult for me to calculate exactly how many hours went into making these paintings. Certainly hundreds, and probably well over a thousand across the entire body of work. In terms of physical resources, there are the usual things: canvases, oil paints, materials, and the time I spend working in my studio. But I do not think those numbers really explain what goes into making a painting. The greatest resources I put into my work are my heart, my soul, and my ego. I care enormously about what I make, and I want every painting to meet the expectations I have for myself. For this particular presentation, there was also my affection for Vanessa Carlos and my desire to make something that she and the gallery I work with could be proud of.
Nat Faulkner
Age: 31
Based in: London
Showing at: Brunette Coleman, Emergence sector
Why They’re Worth a Look: Photography’s bicentennial will have many a collector on the lookout for memorable images this week at the fair. Nat Faulkner, who was born 169 years after its advent and opened his first major solo show at the Camden Art Centre this past winter, came to the medium by way of sculpture, turning his studio into a darkroom in which he could absorb and transmute the highly technical chemical processes of analogue photography. At Art Basel Paris, Faulkner will present photographic prints, one of which was made without a camera, and electroplated sculptural objects (a Philip Guston monograph, a window frame) that speak to his continued interest in showing work that is as much about image-making as the image itself.
When did you first see yourself as an artist?
I can’t pinpoint a specific moment, but being an artist is often about making sure you are comfortable, so that you can act without thinking, and really be yourself. I first saw myself as an artist when I realized that I feel very at home when I am making my work.
Where did the body of work you are showing at Art Basel Paris begin?
With my exhibition at Camden Art Centre, which opened in London at the start of the year. All of the pieces are a continuation of what I was exploring from that show in January, and some evolved out of the process of making that exhibition, in the aftermath.
Who or what do you see this body of work as being in dialogue with?
It is not for me to say what the work is in dialogue with, but the things that feel close to me right now center on my interest in the material processes of photography, chemistry, and perception (although, “alchemical” might be a better word to describe my relationship to the studio). The work that I am involved with recently does not require me to work directly with any surface, despite being very physical. The chemistry that I use in the print drum to create the photographic work regulates itself, behaving in a manner that is both hard to predict and difficult to control. This manifests itself in many ways, most apparently in the shifting color palette of each individual print. The electrolytic process involved with making the silver books is similar; whilst it is true that I carefully bend, roll and fold the brass by hand to mimic the book, the silver ions adhering to the surface of the brass move through the solution independently, encouraged by a low electrical current. In this, I am more like a musical conductor; a mediated type of agency. All of this is an effort to displace agency and afford myself an opportunity to uncover my work by employing various actants, so that it can be closer to nature.
What’s a detail of the work people should look out for?
There is one black-and-white camera-less photo that is made using the enlarger in my darkroom. I have removed the photo negative and printed whatever dust may have accumulated inside the negative carrier. It is almost entirely black, so you have to look closely, but the enlarged particles of dust that are inverted through printing on photo paper are reminiscent of the stars.
What do you hope the environment of the Grand Palais will bring out of the work?
The silver books are solid brass facsimiles of books from my home/studio, they appear blank, despite their format indicating that they might hold information. I plate them with a thin layer of silver, whatever environment you place them in is reproduced on the curved reflective surface of the metal page, although distorted by its shape. They have not really seen the outside of my studio before, so I hope that the ornate and light-filled interior of the Grand Palais can interact with the pages of these books.
What projects do you have coming up that you are especially excited about?
I am looking forward to my first solo exhibition in New York with Matthew Brown in late January of next year, and soon after that I will be back for my first solo exhibition in Paris with Modern Art in May 2027.
Ibrahim Mahama
Age: 39
Based in: Accra, Kumasi, and Tamale, Ghana
Showing at: White Cube
Why They’re Worth a Look: An artist’s artist, biennial darling, and institutional powerhouse, Ibrahim Mahama is best known for both his monumental textile installations (one of which was wrapped around the Arsenale at the 2015 Venice Biennale, Mahama’s breakout moment) and the three cultural incubators he founded in and around Tamale, in the northern region of Ghana where he grew up. Beyond his recent work, Nyamuthia, on view at White Cube’s booth, you can also find him in conversation on Oct. 23 at the Grand Palais with Aby Gaye-Duparc, who curated Mahama’s first solo exhibition in Paris at the Fondation Cartier, opening Oct. 22. The show sees the artist unspool questions of craft, labor, and production in both early work and new site-specific installations.
What do you make art for, and what do you make art against?
I am interested in the histories that are present around us but that we have learned not to see: the history of an industrial object, the labor embedded in a material, or the political decisions that determine why certain places prosper while others are abandoned. I work against the idea that history is something fixed, something that belongs exclusively to institutions or to those who have the power to write it. I am also interested in challenging the assumption that art must be separated from everyday life in order to be considered art. I want to create situations in which we can confront the violence of the world without losing the possibility of imagining something different.
Where did the body of work you are showing at Art Basel Paris begin?
It began with an interest in bringing together materials that come from very different histories but have both been shaped by systems of labor and production. I have been working with batakari, the hand-woven textile traditionally produced in northern Ghana, and with tyre ply, which belongs to a very different world of industrial production, circulation, and use. When you put these materials next to each other, they begin to reveal connections that are not immediately visible. The batakari carries a history of local cotton cultivation, weaving and garment production, but also the disruptions that took place during the colonial period and the later attempts to rebuild textile production through industrialization. The tyre ply comes from another cycle of production and circulation.
Who or what do you see this body of work as being in dialogue with?
I am interested in the relationship between artisanal production and industrial production, but I don’t see them as completely separate worlds. Both involve labor, knowledge, movement and systems of value. The metal tags in the work are important in this sense. They are connected to the classification and circulation of commodities. They were used to identify and assess things before they entered systems of exchange. When they enter the work, they are no longer simply functional objects. They become traces of an economic system. So, the work is in dialogue not only with art history, but with histories of labor, trade, industry, and the movement of materials.
What went into making this work?
There are several kinds of labor involved, and I think it is important not to reduce the making of the work to the final act of assembling the materials. There is the labor already contained in the materials themselves: the people who cultivated and transformed the cotton, the people who wove the batakari, the industrial labor behind the production of the tyre ply, and the systems through which these materials circulated. Then there is the work of bringing them together, preparing them and finding a way for them to coexist within the composition. I am interested in allowing those different histories to remain visible rather than trying to make the materials look as though they originally belonged together.
What’s a detail of the work people should look out for?
I would say look closely at the materials. Sometimes from a distance you see the overall form of the work, but when you get closer you begin to see traces of use, repairs, joins, stains, marks and small differences between one piece and another. There are places where you can still see how something was made or put together. I think those traces make the work more alive.
Asma Belhamar
Age: 37
Based in: Dubai
Showing at: Green Art Gallery, Emergence sector
Why They’re Worth a Look: Dubai has changed radically since Asma Belhamar was born there in 1988. The artist, who received an MFA in textile design from RISD in 2017 and is a resident at the Delfina Foundation in London, takes the rapid transformation of her hometown as the starting point for her interdisciplinary inquiry into place, progress, and architectural memory. In her solo booth with Green Art Gallery, Belhamar will present ceramic works and drawings that isolate traditional Emirati design motifs and techniques that are becoming obsolete as the city morphs into a 21st-century fever dream, surfacing both their aesthetic and emotional resonances.
When did you first see yourself as an artist?
As a child, I was always drawn to making things with my hands. I like to think of myself back then as a little craftsperson, constantly assembling, experimenting, and finding ways to make things. One of my strongest childhood memories is visiting the studio of a relative who was among the early generation of Emirati artists, working primarily with ceramics. I was around seven years old, and I remember being fascinated by this entire space dedicated to making, filled with clay, colors, and tools. It was perhaps the first time I understood that being an artist could be a way of life. I remember imagining having a studio of my own one day.
What do you make art for, and what do you make art against?
I often choose materials and processes that require slow, repetitive, and sometimes laborious work. Whether through stacking, assembling, or allowing a material to take its own time, I am interested in how time can accumulate within an object, almost as though I am trying to hold a moment still.
Architecture has become an important language in my practice, perhaps because growing up in Dubai, it was one of the most visible expressions of change around me. Architecture is often used to communicate progress, ambition, and status through scale. But I am interested in bringing these forms back to a more intimate, human scale, where architecture can encounter the body and begin a different kind of conversation.
I don’t necessarily think of my work as being against something. If anything, it offers a gentle resistance to the speed at which we live, build, and move through the world. It is an invitation to slow down and reconnect with our surroundings and with one another.
Where did the body of work you are showing at Art Basel Paris begin?
This body of work began around two years ago, while I was developing the ideas for my solo exhibition at Green Art Gallery in January 2026, titled “The Day the Window Refused to Fly and the Arch Decided to Hold the Sky.” I wanted to extend my exploration of architecture into something more personal, drawing from childhood memories and the residential architecture I grew up around in the UAE. I was particularly interested in a period when homes were becoming more modern, yet still carried elements of local ornamentation and traditional influences.
I began to approach these familiar architectural elements with a sense of playfulness, imagining what happens when they are removed from their original purpose and given the freedom to become something else. The works I’m presenting at Art Basel Paris continue this conversation through drawings and sculptural assemblies made from ceramics, wood, and tiles.
Who or what do you see this body of work as being in dialogue with?
I see this body of work as being in dialogue with architecture, but perhaps more importantly, with the people who experience and inhabit it. Over the years, I’ve noticed that architects have been particularly interested in my practice. I’ve also been invited to architecture programs at universities as a visiting critic, which I find meaningful because I don’t approach architecture as an architect. I approach it as an artist, through observation, memory, and an awareness of how spaces shape our everyday lives.
In Dubai, architecture becomes both an expression of a city’s ambitions and a part of our personal and collective memories. More recently, conversations around my exhibitions have also made me think about how we build, what we choose to preserve, and how materials and architectural elements might be reused or reimagined. I like that art can open up these conversations without necessarily offering solutions.
What went into making this work?
The process is quite labor-intensive. I begin by observing and documenting architectural details from residential neighborhoods in the UAE, then digitally redesigning and combining them into new forms. The ceramic elements are 3D-printed using clay, with each print taking between four and nine hours. I prepare and wedge the clay manually, and the structures have to be carefully planned. Of course, there are always unexpected moments when the material behaves differently, and I often welcome those happy accidents. The pieces then dry for two to three weeks before going through several stages of firing, glazing, and assembly. What I find interesting is that although I’m using 3D printing, a technology often associated with speed, the process is actually very slow. It requires patience, physical labor, and constant attention to the material.
Yu Nishimura
Age: 44
Based in: Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan
Showing at: Crèvecoeur
Why They’re Worth a Look: Few artists can say their work had a bodily effect on an art-world macher like David Zwirner. Yu Nishimura can. Upon announcing the Japanese painter’s representation in 2025, the mega-gallerist confessed, “His works get under your skin.” Since he joined Zwirner, Nishimura’s muted yet cinematic canvases—which depict pensive portrait sitters with faces interrupted by a pet or pencil, and figures wandering in landscapes both urban and lush—have only become more in demand. At the Grand Palais, his Parisian gallery, Crèvecoeur, will exhibit a recent painting, and two miles away, Lafayette Anticipations will open his first institutional solo in France on Oct. 21, featuring a decade of work by the artist.
When did you first see yourself as an artist?
When I started a family, I began to reconsider what it meant to make a living while continuing to make art. There was a time when being an artist felt, in some ways, like existing slightly outside the structures of society. Through continuing to exhibit my work, I may have gradually found my own place within it.
What do you make art for, and what do you make art against?
Perhaps it is to give form to things that are not easily seen. These are images that gradually reveal themselves through the act of painting. No matter how much the world changes, I believe there is meaning in the fact that painting continues to have a place in it. I think about this every day as I work with my materials.
Where did the body of work you are showing at Art Basel Paris begin?
The setting for River is the Tama River, which flows between Tokyo and Kanagawa. The river is a familiar part of my everyday life. I mostly see it from the window of a train, but it takes on different appearances depending on the time of day, or when I actually go down to the riverbank. I had wanted to paint it for some time.
What went into making this work?
I have been visiting and observing the area for several years in preparation for this painting, though I wouldn’t call it formal research. It was more a part of everyday life, like casually going out with my family. I actually began painting it around the beginning of this year, working on it alongside other pieces.
What’s a detail of the work people should look out for?
I hope viewers will move closer and farther away from the painting, finding a distance that feels right to them. This is also how I engage with my own paintings while working on them.
What do you hope the environment of the Grand Palais will bring out of the work?
There may be something universal in the experience of being by a river, regardless of the country or the people who visit it. I find it interesting that this painting will be shown in the historic Grand Palais, in the particular setting of an art fair where so many different works come together. I would be happy if, in this different cultural context, the painting could make someone pause for a moment.
If you could choose the work’s permanent home, where would it be?
It’s purely imaginary, but I think a museum near the water would be a lovely place for it. I imagine the painting hanging on its own in a gallery with a little room to breathe.
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