Pine cones, glitter and a hip-hop head for sale: red-hot artists reveal their Frieze stunners

‘An enduring act of devotion’ … Louise Giovanelli at her studio in Manchester. Photograph: Linda Nylind/The GuardianView image in fullscreen‘An enduring act of devotion’ … Louise Giovanelli at her studio in Manchester. Photograph: Linda Nylind/The GuardianPine cones, glitter and a hip-hop head for sale: red-hot artists reveal their Frieze stunnersAs the sprawling art jamboree hits London, eight of the most exciting exhibitors share what their work means to them – and who they hope will buy it

First held in 2003, the Frieze art fair is a giant art supermarket that descends on Regent’s Park, London, every October. Some detest it for its blatant commercialism, others relish it as the opportunity to see a mind-boggling amount of contemporary art in one enormous tent. Here, eight British-based artists of the moment talk through what they’re showing.

How would you describe what you do?I make sculpture. I work a lot with metal, fabrics, quite a collection of materials to make landscapes of figures that grow intuitively.

What’s the highlight of your career so far?My exhibition at Hepworth Wakefield – getting major support in such an incredible institution.

View image in fullscreen‘I call them gesture works’ … Kira Freije at her studio. Photograph: Linda Nylind/The GuardianName two favourite artists, one dead and one living.Dead: Marisa Merz or Paul Thek. Both had an attitude of freedom of making. Living: Lillian Lynn or Donna Huddleston, who I know quite well. I love them and I think they’re amazing.

Tell me about the sculpture we’ve photographed you with.I call them gesture works. They’re wall-based, but they allude to a crowd. They’re cast in aluminium and bronze and one of them has a piece of fabric.

Where do you think you’ll be in 20 years?Oh God, I can’t imagine. Hopefully still alive and excited with what I’m making.

How would you describe what you do?I’m a figurative painter, but I also work across sculpture and installation. I’m self-taught, so my work has been described as outsider art. I’ll make work drawn from nursery rhymes and ethnographic texts.

What made you want to become an artist?My mum came to the UK in the 80s from rural Bangladesh and we lived in a series of dilapidated houses. She was a textile worker so she made curtains for the house. My sister would salvage wood and make furniture, so I was immersed in organic homemaking.

View image in fullscreen‘Outsider art’ … Mohammed Z Rahman with his crate and fish pictures. Photograph: Linda Nylind/The GuardianWhat’s the highlight of your career so far?Going to the Venice Biennale earlier this year. In light of the death of Koyo [Kouoh, who died while curating the show in which Rahman participated], the artists really came together.

Name two favourite artists, one dead and one living.Maybe it’s a cliche, but I really like Frida Kahlo. I think she did what I’m trying to do in the sense of hitting a balance between social realism, being political, speaking to the current social conditions and introducing a world of fantasy and mythology and dreams. And I really like the work of Toyin Ojih Odutola who had the Barbican Curve commission in London a few years ago. The storytelling and world building of that show was amazing. It’s a guiding star in terms of the direction I want to take my practice.

Tell me about the sculpture we’ve photographed you with.At Frieze in 2023, I was amazed by all these beautiful wooden shipping crates that were coming in like a big parade. I thought: these would be so beautiful if they were painted. This was designed as a seat and storage for my gallery team – it’s like set design. The fish pictures are drawn from kheta stitching, a folk craft in rural Bangladesh.

How would you describe what you do?I make paintings and I draw, mostly in charcoal. I look at figures in the landscape at liminal times. The figures are anthropomorphic, but they also are genderless. So there’s this queer undertone.

What’s the highlight of your career so far?The Studio Voltaire show in London included the biggest painting I’ve ever made.

Name two favourite artists, one dead and one living.I love Turner’s abstraction of the landscape, and his use of colour really inspired me when I was younger. His watercolours are so transcendent and he’s a master at capturing atmosphere. And I really love Nan Goldin. In a day when art is so capitalist and based on consumption, the artists who stand out are ones who are trying to bring about social change.

View image in fullscreen‘There’s this queer undertone’ … Jake Grewal at his studio. Photograph: Linda Nylind/The GuardianTell me about the picture we’ve photographed you with.It’s a large charcoal drawing of two figures following one another in a forest scene. The figures look quite adolescent, so it feels almost like an old film still. There’s something quite nostalgic about it.

Who would you like to buy it?I would love someone who I really admire to buy it. I’m such a big fan of Anohni, but I doubt she’s going to buy my drawing.

Tell me about the painting we’ve photographed you with.It’s a head portrait. Portraiture has been such an incredible genre in painting, from the Mona Lisa to Girl with a Pearl Earring to Picasso’s The Weeping Woman. I’ve always wanted to deal with this genre in a way that felt unique to how I would understand it. I grew up in a very hip-hop culture and so I’ve been exploring how to make hip-hop versions of heads.

What do you hope will happen when it gets sold at Frieze?Hopefully somebody would love to live with it. Because I think art should be lived with, whether that’s in a museum or someone’s house.

Name two favourite artists, one dead and one living.Tupac and Tupac. He’s the greatest artist in my lifetime. You’re born, there’s a trillion things to notice, and an artist is just someone who goes: “This thing has happened. This is how I feel about it. I’m going to make something that’s so convincing”, whether it’s a painting or a song or a dance performance or a lecture like Joseph Beuys used to do. And then all of a sudden you go: “I get that. That makes sense to me.”

View image in fullscreen‘You’re born first physically, but then you’re born culturally’ … Alvaro Barrington in the workshop at his studio. Photograph: Linda Nylind/The GuardianWhere do you think you’ll be in 20 years’ time?I have four chapters in my life. The first chapter is called Garvey: Birth. I think you’re born twice. You’re born first physically, but then you’re born culturally. And culture tells you how to understand yourself, who to love, who to hate. It’s the value of things. The second chapter is called Malcolm X: Innovation, someone who completely reinvented himself and chose his identity. And then the third chapter is Audre Lorde: Power – a poet and writer and also from Grenada, the island my mom is from. And then the last chapter is called Biggie Smalls: Death.

How would you describe your work?I paint to capture the vibrating luminous residue of a glance turning a fleeting sensory encounter into an enduring act of devotion.

What has been the highlight of your career so far?Probably a major show that began at the Hepworth Wakefield in 2024. It toured to Graz in Austria and then it went to Museum Villa Stuck in Munich, so that was a really nice year for me because I got to follow the works around Europe and see them in different institutional contexts.

Name two favourite artists, one dead and one living.I like Rudolf Stingel. Every show that I’ve seen of his is completely different. He’s very willing to take risks. And for a historical one, Piero della Francesca. I just love those Italian fresco panel paintings. His depictions of women are just glorious.

Tell me about the painting we’ve photographed you with.It’s the first time that I’ve fused two quite disparate series of mine. It’s a face projected on to this sparkly glitter curtain and the painting’s called Cathexia, which is from a Greek word which means to invest your energy into a specific thing. There have been so many examples throughout history where humans have invested in transient materials such as silk or flesh or marble, materialisations of desire, so that’s what I’m trying to do in this painting. It speaks to my interest in drapery and hair and in female beauty.

What do you hope happens to this painting when it’s sold?Oh, that’s a hard question. Well, I put a lot of trust in my gallery with placing it with someone who has a knowledge of my work, supports my practice and would loan it to some museum shows maybe later down the line.

View image in fullscreen‘Rothko is my north star’ … Shaqúelle Whyte at his studio. Photograph: Linda Nylind/The GuardianWhat would you say the highlight of your career so far has been?My show at Wolverhampton Art Gallery this year. I wanted to bring my work back to the city and to people who have varying understandings of art because of the degradation of the education system, and that was a privilege. To see them want to know more was highlight of my life. And I’ve got a solo show at South London Gallery coming up. I think I’m going to be the youngest person ever to do a solo show in that space. And that’s just like, Jesus Christ, how did we get here? I’m a kid from Wolves, you know what I mean? It’s all a bit mad.

Tell me about the paintings you’re showing at Frieze.One’s called Gulivers Forrest and the other’s called Miss Mommy. They were made after the Wolverhampton show and before the beginnings of this new body of work. You’ve got periods of time where you can explore and mess around – that’s what it was.

What do you hope happens to this painting when it’s sold?The most important thing is that the works are looked after and appreciated. So ultimately an institution [buying it] would be great but it needs to be somebody that will be responsible for it as my career grows, and not be flipping it.

Who are your two favourite artists, one dead and one living?Rothko is my north star for what it means to make paintings. And alive, I think Ruprecht von Kaufmann is a phenomenal painter, and so is Andrew Cranston. I like bad-boy painters. In the pursuit of greatness you need to be reaching up to something.

Is it true that Stormzy has been coming by your studio?Yeah, he came the other day. But ultimately, he’s just a guy who’s got interest in art and wants to see the work.

How would you describe your work?I work with a combination of painting, printmaking and photography, all at a very intimate scale. The canvases are cut from materials more common for clothing and sometimes out of my own clothing. There’s often like a conceptual play between the textile subject and the surface, so if it’s made from a suede jacket, the work will depict the suede jacket. I’m interested in the way things like eBay might be the record of our culture in the future and what’s happening to this digital archive. But I’m also really interested in creating atmosphere and the qualities of light and how objects can suddenly express an inner emotion.

View image in fullscreen‘I feel like I let [my work] go on its own journey’ … Poppy Jones at Herald St Gallery, London. Photograph: Linda Nylind/The GuardianWhat’s been the highlight of your career so far?I saw a big Paul Nash retrospective 10 years ago at Tate Britain and became a massive fan. There’s a particular painting of his, Dead Spring, at Pallant House [in Chichester] which I used to look at on my way to or from work when I was teaching. They recently acquired work of mine and in the summer I went to see it and it’s hung opposite Dead Spring. My own work has become part of that conversation in the gallery.

Can you name two favourite artists, one dead and one living?Eileen Agar as my dead artist. I like that she just did her own thing for her whole lifetime, and I like her approach to materials and to collage. Francis Offman is my favourite artist at the moment. He’s using digital technology to fabricate these large weavings but then painting on them. The colours are amazing.

Tell me about the work you’re showing at Frieze.It’s called Statues Also Die (Man Ray). It’s based on a photographic image I took of a Man Ray monograph covered in pine cones and forest-like debris during a residency at a museum in very rural Denmark 10 years ago. The title references the 1950s film by Alain Resnais and Chris Marker [and Ghislain Cloquet] which explores the shifting power of images according to different contexts and that’s something I’m interested in doing in my own work.

Who would you like to buy it, and who would you hate to buy it?I enjoy making the work, but I don’t get overly attached to it once it leaves the studio. I feel like I let it go on its own journey, which I leave to other people.

How would you describe your work? I came to the studio via a non-linear path. I studied science then had various jobs and set up a startup with my sister. Central to my practice is rejecting traditional materials and embracing imperfections. That’s informed by having to make art at home for a long time in cramped spaces.

What has been the highlight of your career so far?My show at the South London Gallery was a turning point. The demographic wasn’t a sort of homogeneous room of art-world folk, politely nodding at the wall text. We had lots of local young people coming in, genuinely reacting to the energy of the work and the materials. It centred around this idea of roller-skating as a motif and some people turned up on their roller-skates.

View image in fullscreen‘My work has always been informed by not having much time’ … Christina Kimeze at her studio. Photograph: Linda Nylind/The GuardianCan you tell me two artists you love, one living and one dead?Matisse had this ability to leave the rough in there as well as the polished, clean line. Chris Ofili has parallels with Matisse, and there’s something I always try and take from both of those artists.

Can you tell me about the picture that we’ve photographed you with?That picture is called Game On (Crane’s Cut) and it’s on suede mat board, which forces a battle between painting and drawing because I have to use oil sticks and pastels and stuff. It shows a woman shuffling cards and it’s about the seductive but scary ideas of chance. It’s using that as a motif to explore the luck of global migration and the lottery of birth. I’m Ugandan, and there’s this crane flying across the picture, referencing the national bird of Uganda, the crested crane.

Where do you think you’ll be in 20 years?My work has always been informed by not having much time – I’m currently pregnant with my third child. Time is such a luxury, isn’t it? I hope I have that space to explore other media, to make sculpture, to make an installation.