December 2025 has proven to be a remarkable month for emerging artists across the globe, with five talents capturing significant attention from galleries, collectors, and art enthusiasts alike. From Cornwall's natural landscapes to São Paulo's vibrant streets, these artists are making their mark through innovative techniques, powerful narratives, and compelling exhibitions that showcase the diverse directions contemporary art is taking.
British painter Imogen Allen, born in 1997 in Cornwall, England, has emerged as a standout voice in contemporary painting with her lush, gauzy depictions of flora and fauna. Currently living and working in her native Cornwall, Allen creates works that challenge viewers' perceptions through her focus on the intricate patterns and vibrant hues of butterfly wings. Her paintings capture delicate color gradients and bold spots and stripes, with subjects that appear to dissolve into expansive fields of color, reminiscent of Gerhard Richter's famous blur effect. This sensitivity to nature's textures stems from her upbringing near the wild moorlands of southwest Cornwall.
Allen has experienced a particularly busy and successful year, with her work currently being presented at NADA Miami alongside Megan Mulrooney this month. This follows her recent two-person exhibition titled "Imago" at Soho Revue in London. Her paintings are also featured in TERRA, the prestigious annual exhibition held across heritage sites in Burgundy, France, while several of her standout pieces were recently showcased in a group exhibition at Blue Door Gallery in New York. Having studied at Camberwell College of Arts in London, Allen has participated in residencies across Brazil, Australia, and the United Kingdom, earning recognition as the Young Penwith Artist of the Year in 2024.
From Brazil, Elian Almeida, born in 1994 in Rio de Janeiro, is redefining visual narratives through his powerful combination of portraiture, archival research, and narrative painting. Working from his base in Rio de Janeiro, Almeida focuses on reframing historically marginalized figures within Brazilian visual culture by presenting them as protagonists of their own stories. His artistic process involves drawing inspiration from historical photographs, which he transforms through vibrant color palettes, celestial motifs, and references that blend pop culture with mythology.
Almeida's work is currently featured in a compelling dual exhibition with fellow Brazilian artist Alberto Pitta, titled "Carnival, Struggle and Other Brazilian Stories," on display at Nara Roesler New York. In this show, he expands his exploration of Afro-Brazilian identity by examining myth, folklore, and everyday rituals as spaces where history and imagination intersect. His piece "Land of the Holy Cross (A Latin Scale after Albert Eckhout)" from 2025 exemplifies this approach, depicting a woman carrying a vessel as she encounters an enormous peacock—a symbol of beauty, power, and spiritual presence—within a lush, dreamlike landscape. The reference to Albert Eckhout, a 17th-century Dutch painter known for ethnographic portraits of Indigenous Brazilians, allows Almeida to reclaim representation of his country and its people from a colonizing perspective.
California-born artist ektor garcia, born in 1985 in Red Bluff, has developed a unique sculptural practice that embraces nomadic creation and material transformation. Currently living and working nomadically, garcia draws particular inspiration from traditional crocheting techniques practiced by his grandmother in Mexico. His sculptures incorporate diverse materials including wire crocheted into flexing lattices, bulbous clay forms that are stacked and knotted, and leather that is looped and joined with jeweler-like precision.
Garcia's work is currently featured in his first institutional solo exhibition at the San José Museum of Art in California, where his sculptures are suspended from ceilings and propped against walls. Despite being scattered throughout the space, these pieces create a unified vision of his material experimentation. In a recent group show at Rebecca Camacho Presents in San Francisco, garcia presented works that use previous sculptures as starting points for new creations. His hanging copper sculpture "pieles (formerly wire mesh)" from 2025 demonstrates his transformative approach by unraveling and reconstructing an older work with a new black border section, rejecting traditional hands-off approaches to finished artworks.
New York-based designer Eny Lee Parker, born in 1989 in São Paulo, brings a distinctive softness to ceramic objects through her organic approach to functional art. Working primarily with clay, Parker creates sconces that evoke calla lilies, floor lamps that rise like natural stems, and vases balanced on bulbous bases. Her current solo exhibition "A Soft Place to Land" at Hannah Traore in New York transforms the gallery's back room into a welcoming sanctuary, complete with plush red carpeting that enhances the elegant whimsy of her ceramic works.
Parker's journey from São Paulo to her current Brooklyn-based design studio reflects her diverse cultural influences. After moving to Los Angeles as a teenager, she attended the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia, where she earned her BFA, MA, and MFA degrees. Since establishing her eponymous design studio in 2017, she has showcased her work with VERSO and Objective Gallery in New York, while also collaborating with brands including Lulu and Georgia.
Finally, Jesse Zuo, born in 2000 in Beijing and currently working in New York, has gained recognition for her masterful figurative paintings that combine flesh and light as key compositional elements. Like contemporaries Rachel Lancaster and Alexis Ralaivao, Zuo focuses intensively on the soft contours of the human body, rendering them in exquisite, zoomed-in detail. Her paintings capture intimate moments: dainty hoops glinting on delicate earlobes, glossy nails catching light, and dappled sunlight dancing across exposed skin.
Zuo's current work, featured in a duo show at New York's Plato Gallery through January 3rd, demonstrates her ability to combine the sensuality of boudoir portraiture with the technical precision of photorealism. Her paintings carry an aura of mystery, often featuring an unidentified subject with long, braided hair whose face is rarely shown, creating a sense of intimacy while maintaining anonymity. Having earned both her BFA and MFA from New York's School of Visual Arts, Zuo has exhibited with galleries including Latitude and Hashimoto Contemporary in New York, as well as sobering in Paris, with upcoming work to be featured in a group show at Copenhagen's V1 Gallery this month.
