When words fail to connect us, we create a unifying medium that transcends the barriers of speech. Art is a visual vocabulary that requires no translation—brushstrokes, photographs, and sculptures become the vocabulary. Similar communication is achieved through the kinetic language of sport, each stride and point a marker of our instinct to move through the world together, not alone.
At a moment of heightened polarization, this year has ignited a global enthusiasm and accord through both forms: the Frieze Fairs and Art Basel; the Winter Olympics, the World Cup, and a Knicks championship. In celebration of art and sport, Art Arena and CULTURED tapped some of today’s foremost athletes and artists to tell us who they think will be tomorrow’s rising stars in their respective fields. From what a WNBA legend loves about one high school player’s game to the images that stopped a celebrated photographer in her tracks, here are the ones to watch.
Athletes
Sylvia Fowles on Jalynn Belton
Sylvia Fowles is a Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer and assistant coach with the Portland Fire. Fowles spent 15 seasons with the Chicago Sky and Minnesota Lynx, winning two WNBA championships and Finals MVP honors in 2015 and 2017. She was named WNBA MVP in 2017 and won four Olympic gold medals with Team USA. The second overall pick in the 2008 WNBA Draft, Fowles was a standout at Louisiana State University. Her No. 34 jersey has since been retired by both LSU and the Minnesota Lynx.
“Class of 2027 combo guard/small forward Jalynn Belton is a phenomenal up-and-coming basketball player from Miami—and an even better person. I’ve had the privilege of watching her grow from a young athlete to a soon-to-be college player as she prepares to choose where she’ll continue her career at the next level. She is a caring, confident individual who carries herself like a leader and stays hungry and determined to succeed at the highest level.
Jalynn played on my AAU team, the Miami Suns Team Fowles EYBL U17, for the last three years, and she consistently set the tone on both ends of the floor. She is a well-rounded player, but what I love most about her game is her creative passing and overall productivity on the court. She sees plays one step ahead, keeps possessions flowing, and has a knack for making the right read—whether that’s finding a teammate for an easy bucket or creating her own shot. She can score at all three levels, rebounds her position, and competes defensively, making her impact felt in every part of the game.
Jalynn has also been a part of four state championship teams at Miami Country Day School. She volunteers her time to help coach and mentor girls in the Miami Suns youth program, giving back to the next generation and modeling what it means to be a leader. She brings energy, humility, and a team-first mindset to everything she does. People should be paying attention.”
Tatyana McFadden on Dakota Nesbitt
Born with spina bifida—a congenital disorder that paralyzed her from the waist down—Tatyana McFadden began racing at 8 years old and is now among the fastest women in the world. The track and field athlete has won 22 Paralympic medals during multiple Summer and Winter Paralympic Games and swept the wheelchair marathon Grand Slam four consecutive years, winning Boston, London, Chicago, and New York City in 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016.
“The para sports program in Baltimore, the Bennett Blazers, is truly something extraordinary, providing a transformative platform that gives young athletes with disabilities the opportunity to discover their strength, resilience, and limitless potential. What makes this program particularly special is the profound impact it has on young girls, who so often lack visible role models in adaptive sports.
Among those rising stars is the remarkable Dakota Nesbitt, an all-around athletic powerhouse competing in track and field, triathlon, swimming, and wheelchair basketball. From the moment I met Dakota, I saw a reflection of my younger self—that same burning determination, competitive fire, and genuine love for sport radiating from her. She approaches every discipline with incredible dedication and a heart that simply refuses to quit.
Dakota is not just an exceptional athlete; she is an exceptional human being, and watching her journey unfold has been nothing short of inspiring. With the foundation she is building through this program and the relentless work ethic she demonstrates every single day, it would be no surprise to anyone watching to see Dakota proudly representing her country on the Paralympic stage one day. She is exactly the kind of athlete and role model that programs like this were built to create.”
Artists
Janette Beckman on Alexandra Sapp
Janette Beckman is a London-born and New York-based photographer. For more than four decades, she has been synonymous with music photography, documenting the changing landscape of rock, rap, and hip hop through portraits of the industry’s underground and mainstream subcultures and figures. She has published five books and is featured in permanent collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Museum of the City of New York, and the National Portrait Gallery.
“Pre-pandemic, I was teaching a photography class at the New School’s Parsons School of Design, and Alexandra was one of my students. She was working on her documentary, Welcome to the Golden Isles, about growing up on St. Simons Island in coastal Georgia—a project she started in 2017. It’s a coming-of-age story rooted in the American South, a reflection of her own youth, and a portrait of the next generation. Through the intimate experiences of teenagers, each navigating race, class, identity, and belonging, the film questions how young people inherit legacies of pain and resilience and what it means to either embrace, reject, or reshape these inheritances.
In the midst of film production, the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a local Black man whose death brought global attention to Glynn County, dramatically heightens the stakes, forcing the subjects and the town to confront uncomfortable truths about complicity, silence, and courage. The breathtaking natural beauty of the coastal South contrasts with the painful histories of injustice.”
Gillian Laub on Pia Paulina Guilmoth
New York-based photographer and filmmaker Gillian Laub is best known for her familial narratives, in which she documents political and emotional division between generations. Her 12-year visual project on racial and social segregation in Montgomery County, Georgia, “Southern Rites,” became an HBO documentary that premiered in 2015. Laub is also highly sought after for her vibrant, unlikely celebrity portraits, including Amanda Seyfried, Laverne Cox, and Dolly Parton.
“We are inundated with images every day, and it has become rare to find work you can’t move past—work that makes you want to know more and see more. That is what happened the first time I saw Pia Paulina Guilmoth’s photographs. The pictures felt familiar and unplaceable at once.
I discovered she makes them where she lives, with the people close to her, on land that means something to her. So much work now is intellectual—beautiful to look at but hard to feel. Her photos hold beauty too, but it comes from somewhere deeper, and that is what makes it stay with you. It holds beauty and fragility together. There is growth and ruin, staying and leaving, all of it rooted in the land.”
Kennedy Yanko on Melissa Joseph
Kennedy Yanko is a painter, sculptor, and installation artist. Known for combining found metal with her signature paint skins, the St. Louis native often draws on Abstract Expressionism and Surrealism. Yanko was the 2021 artist in residence at the Rubell Museum in Miami, and presented two solo exhibitions in 2025—“Retro Future” at Salon 94 and “Kennedy Yanko: Epithets” at James Cohan.
“Melissa Joseph’s use of felt is both inventive and deeply moving. She transforms this humble material into richly textured scenes drawn from everyday life, memory, and personal experience.
Through her meticulous process, felt becomes a medium capable of conveying intimacy and warmth, inviting viewers to slow down and consider the quiet significance of ordinary moments.”
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