The Radar: Oscar Enberg, Katie Shannon and Ki Yoong

Oscar Enberg

New Zealand-born, Berlin-based artist Oscar Enberg works within a conceptual realm that often blends myths with data, using both found objects and carefully crafted pieces. In 2016-17 he was the Creative New Zealand Artist in Residence at the Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin and in 2017 a recipient of the prestigious Ars Viva Preis, awarded annually to artists living in Germany under the age of 35.

Age: 35

Location: Berlin

Last dream you had: The last dream that I remember was terrifying

Favourite exhibition: The best exhibition I saw in 2024 was ‘Picabias Frauen’ at Galerie Michael Werner in Berlin. Encountering these indelible fetish-objects makes it very difficult to believe in much of contemporary painting

Favourite object you own: I prefer to live with very few objects, but ones of great potency. Bookending my collection are two treasured pieces; an early 20th century Karl Griesbum mechanical singing bird cage and a wall-based sculpture by the brilliant but still under-appreciated artist Hawkins Bolden

Favourite art-world Instagram account: I have been enjoying @artbooksephemera recently

Favourite movie: That’s an impossible question to answer, but there are certain moments or sequences that I carry with me; Theatre rehearsals from Jacques Rivette’s Out 1, erotic dreams sequences from Shohei Imamura’s Intention of Murder, song and dance numbers from Tsai Ming Liang’s The Hole, Lucrecia Martel’s The Headless Woman or Albert Serra’s Death of Louis XIV to name a few.

Favourite artwork: I’m always happy when I have the opportunity to visit Robert Gober’s permanent installation at the Schaulager in Switzerland

Loves: I spend a lot of time cooking with and for my family, so cooking I suppose… that and Balthus’ paintings of the Blanchard children.

Hates: Extended periods away from the studio

End-of-year goals: I’m pleased to be presenting new works at Art Cologne with the Berlin gallery Super-Super-Markt in November

Katie Shannon

Katie Shannon works across London and Glasgow. Her practice is currently centred around drawing, costume, performance and programming. Shannon presents filmic framings and deferred time-coding that foreground friendship alliances, music cultures and often positions other voices within new rooms. Works evoke states of energetic melancholia, seeking to counter ennui with collaboration, shared intimacy and unrest. Her ongoing performance project, TLC23, was initiated with Keira Fox, born out of a shared interest and research into mania, trauma states and unravelling female personas within film, writing and performance.

Age: N/A

Location: London/ Glasgow

Last dream you had: Searching for a lone shoe in a parallel world

Favourite exhibition: Robert Anton at the Tramway several years back, a very private window into his work. More recently Lutz Bacher at Raven Row.

Favourite object you own: A faux gold and bakelite playing card box

Favourite art-world Instagram account: @themanhattanartreview perhaps, but second to the actual website, @psychojonkanoo is also pretty great

Favourite movie: Ticket of No Return by Ulrike Ottinger

Favourite artwork: SMILE mag or Georgina Starr’s The Bunny Lake Collection

Loves: current musical obsessions, full-length coats, under-repair street furniture, acrylic nails, baths and late night workshops

Hates: Entitled pricks

End-of-year goals: To visit more places, do more things and remain upright

Ki Yoong

London-based artist Ki Yoong’s approach is figurative, taking inspiration from a breadth of material, notably the people around him, places (both real and fictional), poetry and art history. Yoong has exhibited internationally and has collaborated with a variety of brands and institutions including Vogue, Alex Eagle, Paul Smith and The House of St Barnabas. You might also find him painting murals and running workshops with the children of Coppermill Primary School, Walthamstow, where he has been Artist in Residence for the past three years.

Age: Somewhere between ten and 70, you choose

Location: London

Last dream you had: The last one I can remember was where I was a child again. I lived on a farm and it felt like a very healthy day. My siblings and I were unearthing vegetables and there were little goats, fresh tablecloths and a garden to run in. I remember a part where I was sitting on a bench under a great tree, its branches reaching down with green hands. It was a very nice dream, I’d love a pet goat.

Favourite exhibition: I don’t think I know the answer to that, but I went to Charleston Farmhouse this summer and that left an impression on me. Walking into that house is like stepping into an artwork, every surface is painted with patterns and colours by the friends and lovers who lived and visited there. It gave me lots of inspiration to be in a place where art felt like a dedicated way of life

Favourite object you own: A little gold heart that was my sister’s, I wear it every day

Favourite art-world Instagram account: @thewhitepube and @queercircle

Favourite movie: Orlando, an adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s novel. The story flows along simply but with great intensity. I love the costumes and the beautiful soundtrack

Favourite artwork: At the moment it’s the frescoes of Piero della Francesca. Those powdery colours and mystical faces are sparking things in me, they feel restrained but monumental. There’s something in their delicacy and the fragile materiality of their surfaces that makes them feel so precious. I need to see them

Loves: At the moment my friend’s new baby girl, Lily. She has soft hair on her face like a cub. I also love really delicious tomatoes, the people in my life and my dog, Oats

Hates: I try not to bother

End-of-year goals: To have done my best whilst having a paintbrush in my hand for more time than it isn’t. Move through each day calmly and deliberately!