Artsy, the world’s largest online platform for discovering and collecting art, is pleased to unveil its 2025 edition of The Artsy Vanguard, an annual feature on the most promising artists working today. This year it will focus on 10 early-career artists gaining international traction, who were selected based on their original work, growing influence among galleries and institutions, insightful Artsy data—such as follows and commercial interest on Artsy—as well as interest from private collectors, in addition to other factors.

The Artsy Vanguard 2025 includes: Agnes Waruguru (b. 1994, Nairobi, Kenya), Chris Oh (b. 1982, Portland, USA), Emily Kraus (b. 1995, New York, USA), Hettie Inniss (b. 1999, London, UK), Holly Hendry (b. 1990, London, UK), Laís Amaral (b. 1993, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Melissa Joseph (b. 1980, Pennsylvania, USA), Moka Lee (b. 1996, Incheon, South Korea), Taylor Simmons (b. 1990, Atlanta, USA), and Xin Liu (b. 1991, Xinjiang, China).

Agnes Waruguru treats painting as a site and process for exploring the materiality of objects and their capacity to act as markers of identity and carriers of personal histories. She works predominantly on cotton, using dyeing, pouring and spraying alongside brushwork. These painterly processes are combined with acts of making learnt and inherited from the women in her life. Beadwork, sewing, needlework, embroidery and knitting are all incorporated in her work, intimately connecting aspects of personal identity with traditions of women’s work.