The 5 Female Artists to Watch

Earlier this year, the Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market report confirmed it: the gap is finally closing. Female artists now account for 50% of representation among primary market galleries, and 45% across all dealers, with the sales share for women in the field steadily increasing with every brush stroke and every open show.

So, who should we be looking to for the next great canvas? Well, we're spotlighting five female artists you should be watching (if you aren't already) to answer that very question.

Alexandra Metcalf

An up-and-coming force in contemporary art, Alexandra Metcalf had her breakthrough in 2025 with her inaugural institutional solo show, Gaaaaaaasp, at The Perimeter in London. This was followed shortly afterwards by her Art Basel debut with Clerkenwell-based gallery Ginny on Frederick, where she presented a time-tangled installation of reclaimed grandfather clocks that earned her a nomination for the Baloise Art Prize. Drawn to a slice of madness, Metcalf’s recent work continues to inhabit a ghostly, psychedelic atmosphere. Her latest solo exhibition, E=mcScared, at the Dépendance Gallery in Brussels, displayed a series of large-scale paintings that veiled vivid ripples of colour over faint, nervous figures, encapsulating the 19th-century medical concept of “railway madness”. Following the close of this show in June 2026, Metcalf has not publicly announced her next solo exhibition but, much like railway madness, her rise shows no sign of slowing.

Mulgil Kim

Lush, dreamlike scenes are what Korean artist Mulgil Kim is all about, and her verdant canvases are redefining what stillness can look like. Trained in fine art before setting off on her “Art Road” project – a 673-day journey across five continents and 46 countries, during which she produced more than 400 paintings documenting her daily reflections – Kim continued the project back in Korea as “National Art Road”, capturing the country’s seasons and people. Following her wealth of travels, her latest body of work was recently displayed at Mayfair’s Maddox Gallery in her solo exhibition, “Green Melody, Blue Poem”: a soft space of enclosed worlds, from moonlit nights to drifting skies, allowing feelings to rest. Emerging as one of the most sought-after names in contemporary calming art, Kim’s work invites you to fill up your lungs and exhale in a world away from your own.

Jemila Isa

Creating mesmerising, cartoonish scenes of preachers and choir girls, Jemila Isa brings a unique approach shaped by her upbringing in a Nigerian family of dual faith, using her practice to pick apart spirituality, womanhood and the church’s role in African and diasporic communities. After winning Arts Council England’s DYCP grant and completing the Black Blossoms residency, Isa recently presented her first solo exhibition, Dreams Lost Upon Waking, at Maureen Paley’s Studio M. “The show is inspired by a dream I had in 2015, which was so vivid and visually rich that I woke up and immediately wrote it down,” says Isa. The paintings follow the story of a pink-laden bride and groom, filled with devious and wacky details that only REM sleep could conjure. The series comes years after the dream, and after her divorce, which led her to re-examine the meanings of marriage through the show. Now, represented by Stevenson Gallery, she is emerging as one of the more intriguing artists tracing what belief and belonging can look like today.

Amelia Cross

After training in bespoke tailoring at the London College of Fashion and completing an MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art, Amelia Cross is merging both disciplines through her signature trompe-l'œil “sewn paintings”, leaving canvases suited, booted, laced up and tied with a Windsor knot. Inspired by overlooked sartorial details, from curling name tags to creased collars, her pieces explore identity, restraint and the unspoken codes of dress. Currently in residence at the Sarabande Foundation, Cross recently presented her solo exhibition, Discipline and Display, at Nino Mier Gallery in Tribeca, New York City, cementing her as a name to watch – perhaps in both the fashion and art worlds…

And for the Londoners, keep eyes peeled for her upcoming exhibition at Incubator in Marylebone, running from 9-26 September 2026. 

Celine Ali

Celine Ali doesn't paint faces, and that's precisely the point. The Romanian-Turkish, London-based artist focuses her work on elegantly posed, baroque-inspired faceless figures, leaving just enough ambiguity for viewers to project their own stories onto the canvas. Trained first in interior design before completing an MA in Fine Art at London Met, Ali brings a spatial sensibility to her recent work, transforming domestic rooms into psychological landscapes. After exhibiting internationally since 2022, Ali partnered with Chinese painter, Zhou Song, earlier this year for an exhibition at Maddox Gallery named Between Realms, joining forces as two artists building worlds that sit just beyond the familiar.