5 Emerging Galleries to Watch at the 2024 New York Art Fairs

As May ushers in spring, New York Art Week 2024 presents an opportunity to catch more than just flowers sprouting new leaves. While the Big Apple is preparing for an influx of major gallerists, artists, and collectors alike, there are plenty of new names to be watching for, too.

Amid the bustling two weeks of fair activity, locals and guests alike are often lured by colossal fairs like Frieze and TEFAF, but the smaller fairs—Independent, Future Fair, NADA New York, and, this year, Esther—offer all-important space for emerging dealers, from brand-new galleries to those that are taking major steps into the New York limelight.

Here, we highlight five small galleries exhibiting across the New York art fairs to keep an eye on.

Patel Brown, Montréal and Toronto

NADA New York

At NADA New York, Canadian tastemaker Patel Brown will present a solo exhibition of new works from Filipino Canadian painter Marigold Santos. In these works, Santos explores the aswang, a shapeshifting figure from Filipino folklore, which she reinterprets as a metaphor for her experiences of displacement and changing identity. Her paintings—often fantastical and amalgamated portraits—explore the complexities of femininity and being part of a diaspora.

Patel Bown, which has gallery spaces in Toronto and Montreal, has rapidly ascended to a prominent position in the Canadian contemporary art scene. In Toronto, the gallery is hosting two simultaneous exhibitions: “Eroding Territory,” curated by Cecilia González Godino, which explores how artists reclaim narratives of landscape and identity through a decolonial lens, and Brendan George Ko’s “The Haunted Landscape: Chapter One,” consisting of photos from the Four Corners, the meeting point of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah.

The rising gallery has also recently hosted solo presentations at Barely Fair and EXPO in Chicago, and participated in a group exhibition at the Dallas Art Fair and Plural 2024 in Montreal.

The Lower East Side’s Massey Klein Gallery was established by the husband-and-wife team of Garrett Klein and Ryan Massey in 2018. The gallery is dedicated to uplifting the careers of mid-career and emerging artists, including several rising American painters such as Lydia Baker, Elise Ferguson, Nick McPhail, and Bethany Czarnecki. Its current exhibition, “Local Realism,” presents Los Angeles–based Ramiro Henandez’s translucent paintings, and is on view until May 11th.

For Future Fair, the gallery will debut new work by Dutch artist Martine Johanna. Johanna’s hyperrealistic paintings are characterized by dark, intense colors and surreal settings and feature semi-autobiographical women protagonists embodying independence and heroism.

At Future Fair, Red Arrow Gallery will present a solo booth by Nashville-based artist Karen Seapker entitled “Dawn Chorus.” Named after the early morning birdsong that they’re inspired by, Seapker’s paintings grapple with themes of uncertainty and regeneration through surrealistic paintings that combine floating symbols with a distorted perspective and jigsaw puzzle–like composition.

Red Arrow Gallery, a leading venue for contemporary art in Nashville, is known for its eclectic program of emerging and mid-career artists, nurturing the growing art community in the Tennessee capital. Led by Katie Shaw, Red Arrow originally opened as a project space in Joshua Tree before its relocation to Nashville in 2014. Today, Red Arrow Gallery is committed to fostering experimental art from its home in East Nashville.

Cape Town–based THK Gallery will present a group booth of works by Trevor Stuurman, Lulama Wolf, Anya Paintsil, and Driaan Claassen at 1-54 New York. This curated selection of recent works from the gallery’s represented artists highlights the vanguard of emerging African art. Among those featured, photographer Stuurman will present his new series of portraits made with chromogenic prints, “From Africa with Love,” portraying traditional symbols from across the continent, creating a futuristic vision for its residents.

THK Gallery was established in the heart of Cape Town in 2019 by German photographer Frank Schönau, who was later joined by auctioneer Linda Pyke as director. In the last five years, the gallery has transformed into a powerhouse for the local arts community, and in 2021 it opened an additional space in Cologne. The gallery is dedicated to promoting artists from Africa and its diaspora, propelling these emerging artists onto the international stage at art fairs, including 1-54, Abu Dhabi Art, Investec, and Enter Art Fair, among others.