The Work

Charred palm trunk stands against luminous sky, painted from photographs taken during daily walks around Altadena following the Eaton Fire. Dancy applies vivid hues across the entire surface before introducing landscape elements, allowing grief and beauty to exist as intimately as adjacent brushstrokes. Trees appear in states of charred decay and abundant renewal, scorched hillsides renegotiating chaparral palettes against fire and season. Dynamic line work and impassioned colour that previously animated goddess-like figures now charge the landscape with urgency, demonstrating destruction and renewal as transitional states.

Artist Position

ESTABLISHED MID-CAREER. MFA Columbia University (2009), BA Bard College (2001). Work held in Whitney Museum of American Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Columbus Museum of Art, Yuz Foundation Shanghai. Featured in MoMA PS1's "Greater New York" (2015), Rubell Family Collection's "No Man's Land." Known for fluorescent-hued paintings depicting powerful female nudes and figures that New York Times' Roberta Smith described as those "who don't have time for the male gaze."

Market Intelligence

Auction record USD21,277 for "Double Undressed" Phillips London (2017), results range USD504–USD21,277. "Mourning's Orbit" represents a dramatic departure from signature fluorescent acrylic nudes to oil landscape, the first landscape body following 15 years of figurative work. Shift demonstrates evolution while maintaining dynamic line and colour. Mid-career positioning with institutional validation but accessible auction performance.

Collection Rationale

Oil medium and photographic source represent new technical territory while maintaining formal commitments to gesture, colour, and feminist conviction. Complements collections focused on contemporary landscape, California artists, climate-responsive practices, or feminist painters expanding visual language. Natural adjacency to Cecily Brown, Dana Schutz, Amy Sillman (Dancy's teacher). Timing favours acquisition before the market absorbs significance, making it a pivotal mid-career moment. Whitney and LACMA holdings provide an institutional anchor, while auction accessibility offers entry before the landscape work develops a premium.

The Work

Dense red forest painted with distorted ground and scale evokes theatrical backdrop flatness familiar from childhood; grandparents directed the Yongfeng Society Beijing theatre troupe, where his father worked as a painter and set designer. Natural and architectural elements of Harbin intertwine with visages of relatives and otherworldly humanoid monsters, forming hallucinatory scenes. Flowers and fallen petals recur as reminders that ecological renewal is a natural consequence of death, and loss gives rise to growth. Work inspired by the discovery of previously unknown family photographs uncovered after the father’s death, oxidised silver-halide film setting in motion consideration of life cycles. Drawing on Chinese cultural traditions and poets Robert Lowell and Emily Dickinson; nostalgia, loss, and wonder distil into compositions suggesting the vastness of the theatre of life.

Artist Position

ESTABLISHED. Born in Harbin in 1977, graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in 2002. Represented by Hauser & Wirth (joined 2025) and Xavier Hufkens Brussels. Works held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Centre Pompidou, Paris, M+ Hong Kong, Singapore Art Museum, and Long Museum Shanghai. Featured Metropolitan Museum (2025), Centre Pompidou (2024), M+ (2023), UCCA Edge Shanghai (2022), Crystal Bridges Museum, Bentonville (2018), Tate Liverpool (2007). Member N12 group of Central Academy graduates exhibiting together since 2003. Came to prominence in the early 2000s as part of a new generation shaping China’s contemporary art scene.

Market Intelligence

Secondary market presence through Sotheby’s and Phillips, with works dating from the early 2000s. Hauser & Wirth's representation (announced in October 2025) represents significant market development alongside continued representation by Xavier Hufkens. “Theatre of Wither and Thrive” is Hauser & Wirth's debut (February–April 2026, New York). The seminal series “Belovezhskaya Forest” (2019–2021) established increased narrative and conceptual complexity. Pricing reflects established mid-career status with blue-chip representation and major museum holdings.

Collection Rationale

Practice balances Eastern and Western cultural references, toggling recognisable imagery with unexpected visual perspectives. Complements collections focused on contemporary Chinese painting, psychologically complex figurative work, or artists mining personal memory and collective history. Natural adjacency to collectors holding Neo Rauch, Luc Tuymans, Liu Ye. Metropolitan Museum and Centre Pompidou holdings provide an institutional anchor. Work explores universal themes—cycles of growth/death, memory formation, family history—through a specifically Chinese cultural lens, offering broad appeal while maintaining cultural specificity. Timing favours acquisition during Hauser & Wirth's debut before expanded international visibility drives the market upward.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

The Work

Surreal pink and grey skies hover over ochre plains and mesas painted from memory of the Kaṉku-Breakaways 25km north of Coober Pedy. Cooley builds rich layers with a palette knife, capturing the opalescent spectrum from granite rocks to mulga scrub as colours shift from reddish ground with whites, yellows, purples, to near-black. An aerial viewpoint increases the vastness of Country, while bold palette strokes depict days, seasons, and a lifetime of observation. The mnemonic work reflects a deep love of Antakirinja Matu-Yankunytjatjara Country, drawing on decades as an opal prospector, experiencing the landscape from above and below.

Artist Position

EMERGING SENIOR. Born Yanyuwa Country, Borroloola, Northern Territory 1953. Chair Umoona Community Arts Centre, Coober Pedy, opened in 2024 after 25 years of advocacy. Began visual art career 2021 through Umoona, works between Umoona and APY Art Centre Collective's Adelaide studio. Finalist Telstra NATSIAA (2023, 2024), Wynne Prize (2024, 2025), featured 18th Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art (2024). Community leader across Umoona and Coober Pedy. Opal miner since first visiting with father in 1958.

Market Intelligence

No secondary market, exclusively primary market through Umoona Community Arts Centre and APY Art Centre Collective. Recent institutional momentum through consecutive NATSIAA nominations and Wynne Prize finalist selections demonstrates rapid critical recognition for practice. Adelaide Biennial inclusion positions within major Australian contemporary survey. Large-scale works command institutional presence. Pricing reflects emerging status despite senior cultural authority spanning seven decades.

Collection Rationale

Cooley's late-career emergence follows established pattern of senior Indigenous artists bringing deep cultural knowledge to contemporary practice. Paintings document the landscape intimately known through childhood traversing and decades of prospecting; he has a geological understanding informing subject and technique. Complements collections focused on contemporary Indigenous landscape, South Australian desert country, or senior practitioners. Natural adjacency to APY Lands artists or contemporary Indigenous abstraction. Timing favours acquisition during the emerging phase before sustained institutional validation elevates positioning. Umoona's 2024 opening represents significant infrastructure development, positioning Cooley as a foundational figure.

The Work

Opaque oil paints and thin washes create figures and landscapes that hover above the canvas, glowing from within. Williams builds abstract brushstrokes before “beating the narrative into the work,” then oversaturating with materials and stripping back to ghost-like, patchy effect. Folkloric scenes depict gatherings, real and imagined, where friends, relatives, strangers, lovers and animals intermingle across displaced timelines rippling between past, present, and imagined. Practice explores grandparents’ migration from Alexandria, Egypt, to Australia and the artist’s own outsider perspective toward place, time, and community.

Artist Position

EARLY MID-CAREER. Born in Melbourne in 1984, BA Communication and Design, Swinburne University 2004, lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Solo exhibitions: Roberts Projects, Los Angeles, “Synonym” (2024), Galerie Crèvecoeur, Paris, Vigo, London, and COMA, Sydney. Works held in the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection, Bourse de Commerce Pinault Collection, Arndt Collection, and Xiao Museum of Contemporary Art. Featured publications include Forbes, Artist Profile, It’s Nice That, Autre Magazine. 

Market Intelligence

Limited Australian auction history 2014-2016 through Leonard Joel, Lawson Menzies, primarily early works on paper. Current market positioning through established international programs Roberts Projects LA, Galerie Crèvecoeur Paris, COMA Sydney. Pinault Collection acquisition signals major institutional validation. Pricing reflects established mid-career status with blue-chip representation. Work operates primary market through gallery network across Los Angeles, Paris, Sydney, London.

Collection Rationale

Anchors collections focused on contemporary figurative painting, diaspora narratives, or Australian expatriate artists. Distinctive visual language combining folkloric storytelling with painterly abstraction creates an immediately recognisable signature. Complements collectors holding painters working across memory and autobiography; Peter Doig, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Hurvin Anderson. Natural adjacency to contemporary figurative painters exploring cultural displacement and family history. Pinault Collection inclusion demonstrates institutional confidence in sustained practice. Accessible entry point before major museum solo elevates market positioning.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​