The Radar: Florence Reekie, Max Xeno Karnig and Ellen Hanson

Florence Reekie

Self-taught artist Florence Reekie creates intricate and carefully rendered works informed by her interest in the materiality and luminosity of oil paint. Reekie often reimagines the role of drapery in painting, featuring shimmering fabrics, silk-gloved hands and flowing ribbons that have been mysteriously discarded. By spotlighting drapery, a long-standing yet often overlooked element of classical painting, Reekie sparks conversations about identity, vanity and perception.

Age: 32

Location: South West France

Last dream you had: I’m currently in the middle of a house/studio move so most of my dreams consist of big empty spaces and forgetting to bring the dog with me

Favourite exhibition: ‘Fashioning Masculinities’ at the V&A in 2022. I’ve also always loved everything I’ve seen at Jupiter Artland outside Edinburgh

Favourite object you own: Photo albums

Favourite art-world Instagram account: @eatenmag for all the food still lifes

Favourite movie: Tough question but I’ll watch anything by Sofia Coppola

Favourite artwork: Primavera by Botticelli

Loves: Chocolate

Hates: A lack of chocolate

End-of-year goals: Sorting out a decent painting set up in my new studio, previously I have made short-term makeshift easels etc, but now I’m going to spend some time getting it right from the start

Max Xeno Karnig

Painter Max Xeno Karnig transforms everyday objects and cinematic icons into modern-day mythologies, blending them seamlessly with the reverence found in classical Western art. From Christopher Walken to Jean-Paul Belmondo, his enigmatic paintings place these figures against mysterious backdrops, delving into themes of desire, satire and the absurd. Drawing inspiration from historical painters he admires, Karnig arranges his subjects into playful compositions that resonate with both homage and innovation.

Age: 34

Location: Los Angeles, California

Last dream you had: I quickly forget my dreams but that is what painting is for

Favourite exhibition: ‘Raphael’ at The National Gallery

Favourite object you own: Every day is a new obsession

Favourite art-world Instagram account: @rimanellidavi

Favourite movie: Teorema (1968) by Pier Paolo Pasolini

Favourite artwork: La Fornarina by Raphael

Loves: Pasta, surfing in the late summer evening with friends, antiquated pigments, lavender spike oil, Patricia Highsmith, James Joyce, returning to favorite paintings in a museum, a well-fitting pair of trousers

Hates: Hate itself

End-of-year goals: To have even more fun every day making my work

Ellen Hanson

Painting on textiles stretched over bars, Ellen Hanson interrogates the performative nature of femininity. Beginning with charcoal sketches on elastic cotton, Hanson stretches the fabric to distort her figures, embodying the strain of womanhood. Layers of oil paint smooth over the exaggerated forms, adorned with delicate hints of decoration, crafting an illusion of perfection. Her artworks confront the contradictions of womanhood’s societal constructs, where expectation clashes with reality and the fear of falling short looms large.

Age: 32

Location: Mexico City

Last dream you had: Being in a big house that was like a life-size version of a Polly Pocket house with everyone I know

Favourite exhibition: I still think about the Mike Kelley retrospective I saw at the Pompidou in 2013

Favourite object you own: My sewing machine

Favourite art-world Instagram account: @sporarts

Favourite movie: Right now it’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1976) by Chantal Akerman

Favourite artwork: The Dead Toreador by Manet

Loves: SR Harris fabric store in Minneapolis, reading by the lake, scheming with friends

Hates: Heartbreak

End-of-year goals: To finish the 22 paintings I’m making for my first solo show in LA