The global online art platform Artsy has selected artist Moka Lee as one of the "Artsy Vanguard 2025" artists, highlighting the most promising talents working today. Among the 10 artists chosen this year, Moka Lee is the only Korean artist featured.

The Artsy Vanguard annually highlights talented artists with unique visions who are breaking new ground with work in the art world. Previous Korean artists recognized include Suki Seokyeong Kang (2019), Lee Kun-yong (2020), and Yoora Lee (2023).

This year, over 500 nominations were considered for the Artsy Vanguard, with the final 10 selected including Moka Lee, alongside Holly Hendry, Taylor Simmons, Laís Amaral, Agnes Waruguru, Chris Oh, Melissa Joseph, Emily Kraus, Xin Liu, and Hettie Inniss. The selected artists' works were displayed on digital billboard in New York's Times Square until November 3.

Moka Lee (b. 1996)’s work spans portraiture, still life, and landscapes, inspired by photos found on social media. Her paintings are filled with collisions of unstable emotions that, though widespread in society, remain unspoken. Resembling the surface of retro photographs, her paintings are composed of thin layers of oil paint, representing layers of emotions built up within the work.

This year alone, Lee participated in Frieze Seoul with Jason Haam, as well as Art Basel and Frieze London with Carlos/Ishikawa, which will present her first solo show in the U.K. next January.

References

• 제이슨 함(Jason Haam)
• 아트시, 아트시 뱅가드 2025 (Artsty, The Artsy Vanguard 2025)

Ji Yeon Lee has been working as an editor for the media art and culture channel AliceOn since 2021 and worked as an exhibition coordinator at samuso (now Space for Contemporary Art) from 2021 to 2023.