Three women artists under 40 on the art market in 2023

Three women – whose work redefines what we already know about abstraction and figuration – are already eliciting 7-digit auction results (in USD) although they are only in their thirties. While the reputation of the galleries supporting them has clearly played a role in the explosion of their prices on the secondary market, the singularity of their careers and their practices also tells us something about the major trends driving the Ultra-contemporary segment of the art market.

Top three results for female artists under 40 in 2023

1. Avery SINGER

Untitled (2016) – $4 million, Christie’s Hong Kong, 28/05/2023

2. Loie HOLLOWELL

Standing in Red (2019) – $2.29 million, Sotheby’s, Hong Kong, 05/04/2023

3. Jadé FADOJUTIMI

Quirk my mannerism ( 2021) – $1.9 million, Phillips, New York, 14/11/2023

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Avery Singer

Born in 1987. Based in New York

Particularity of her work: cutting-edge digital technology meets classical art history.

Avery Singer is a painter. She therefore practices a classic artistic technique par excellence; but her singularity stems from the research she conducts before painting, and most notably from her exploration of the convergence possibilities between painting and technology. In the creative process as well as at the heart of her subjects, Singer mixes tradition and innovation in a unique way. She uses cutting-edge 3D digital modeling tools, such as SketchUp, Blender and DAZ 3D, tools that were initially developed for architecture and video games.

Her main gallery:

Avery Singer has been represented by Hauser & Wirth since December 2019, when her work had already been seen at several international events, including the 58th international art exhibition of the Venice Biennale in 2019. Then aged 32, the artist became the youngest recruit to the Hauser & Wirth gallery which started by a solo presentation of her new works at the Frieze in Los Angeles in February 2020.

Evolution of her market:

Making her auction debut the year she turned 30 (in 2017) with a first painting that sold for $36,000, another work by Avery Singer, Fellow Travelers, Flaming Creatures (2013), fetched an astonishing $735,000 the following year at Sotheby’s New York. It was 2018, a few months before the official announcement of her representation by the powerful gallery Hauser & Wirth (December 2019). Clearly the best-informed bidders were eager to take advantage of the rumors in circulation.

In the spring of 2021, when Hauser & Wirth was working on Avery Singer’s first New York solo show scheduled for after the summer, Singer’s work jumped into a substantially higher price bracket when a canvas she painted at the age of 26, Dancers Around An Effigy To Modernism (2013), sold for more than $3 million at Christie’s Hong Kong. On 23 June 2021, another work (Untitled, 2018) reached $4.1 million at Phillips in New York and in 2022, her auction record rose to $5.2 million for a large canvas titled Happening (2014) when it was presented at Sotheby’s New York.

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Loie Hollowell

Born in 1983. Based in New York

Particularity of her work: carnal abstraction

Hollowell’s paintings employ flexible geometric forms that immediately invoke bodily and sensual experiences, leading to her being described as a modern-day Georgia O’Keeffe. Her early works were “essentially abstract biographical paintings,” based on memories of an abortion suffered at the age of 28. Since then, her abstract works have been inspired by more or less pleasant female experiences that include illness, sexuality, childbirth and motherhood. The human body, with organs that press, compress, expand, tense with pleasure or pain, are explored through subtle combinations of shapes and colors.

Her main galleries:

Since 2017, Loie Hollowell has been working with the influential Pace gallery which represents several of the worlds most influential artists and has galleries in New York, London, Seoul, Hong Kong, Geneva and Los Angeles. The artist also works with other major galleries including Jessica Silverman and the Konig Gallery.

Evolution of her market:

Loie Hollowell’s prices increased dramatically after she joined the Pace gallery in 2017. Starting from an auction debut of already $68,750 in May 2018 (Sotheby’s New York), her work was fetching more than $400,000 in 2019 and by 2021 she had reached the million-dollar threshold. This phenomenal growth fueled temptations of rapid resale to pocket strong capital gains, as with her painting Lick Lick in Orange and Blue (2015), acquired for $137,500 in September 2019 (Christie’s New York) and subsequently resold for $963,000 ($825,500 more!) in April 2022 at Sotheby’s Hong Kong.

In 2023, her Standing in Red (2019) set a new auction record at $2.29 million during a prestigious Sotheby’s Hong Kong sale celebrating its 50th anniversary in Asia. Indeed, Hong Kong generates more auction turnover from her work than New York.

In the year of her 40th birthday, Loie Hollowell was the third top-selling Ultra-contemporary artist, but like some other artists who have also experienced this kind of rapid price evolution, Hollowell considers it an affront that collectors, whom she has often met when they were buying her works from galleries, resell them on the secondary market for generous profits. In 2022, she also launched her first collection of NFTs with a resale commission payment to the artist integrated into the NFT smart contract (giving her a modicum of control).

Loie Hollowell: Geography of her auction turnover (copyright Artprice.com)

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Jadé FADIJOUTIMI

Born in 1993. Lives and works in London

Particularity of her work: a synesthetic abstraction

Jadé FADOJUTIMI feels things in colors: her synesthesia (as such phenomena are called) is apparently more developed than in most people. A sensory perception ‘disorder’, any stimulation automatically generates visions of colors, which subsequently inspire her paintings that attempt to capture living and changing colors.

For this young artist, painting must renew and convey the intensity of emotions every day. It is her diary, a reflection of her individual life, her own identity, her joys, her pains and her reflections on the world and nature. All expressed, if possible, on large canvases, with tremendous energy.

Her main galleries:

After the Pippy Houldsworth Gallery took Jadé Fadojutimi on board and presented her first solo exhibition in 2017 (the year she graduated from the Royal College of Art in London), a couple of her works were acquired by the Tate Gallery in London and the ICA in Miami. In 2021, she participated in the Liverpool Biennale, participated in a group exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London and had her first solo exhibition in an American museum (Miami Institute of Contemporary Art). Already in high demand at the time, the artist’s work experienced even greater demand in 2022 after joining the powerful Gagosian gallery alongside artists like Damien Hirst and Takashi Murakami.

Fadojoutimi : world ranking at auction

Evolution of its market:

Fadojutimi obtained astonishing results on the secondary market as soon as her work was offered at auction in 2020. Her first work put up for sale, Rampage / Untitled Study (2017), was estimated at $4,000 but sold for $52,000 (13 times above its high estimate) at Christie’s. Two months later, Phillips sold a larger painting for $378,000, and her prices continued their upward gallop in 2021, exceeding $1 million for the first time: $1.4 million in October 2021 at Sotheby’s London for A Muddled Mind That’s Never Confined, (2021).

In 2022, this British artist of Nigerian descent, who happens to be the youngest artist in the permanent collection of the Tate Modern, participated in the prestigious Venice Biennale. Such news is still stoking demand for her work and her auction prices: In November 2023, her Quirk my mannerism (2021) fetched her latest auction record at nearly two million dollars at Phillips in New York.