Art News: Top 10 emerging British artists to watch in 2027

These are ten artists working in Britain, early in their careers, with a show, an award or a shortlist that puts them in view in 2027. We chose them from public programmes and prize announcements, and each entry says where you can see the work. Our 2026 list was published in October, and Okiki Akinfe, first on it, went on to win the new £30,000 emerging artist prize at Frieze London.

1. Sahara Longe

The London-born painter Sahara Longe, born in 1994, has a solo exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery from 16 February to 13 June 2027, announced by Timothy Taylor, the gallery that represents the artist. Dulwich is a gallery built around Rembrandt, Poussin, Murillo and Gainsborough, and a show there sets a young painter's work beside the old masters. Of everything on this list, it is the one to plan a trip around in the first half of the year.

2. Deborah-Joyce Holman

Deborah-Joyce Holman, born in 1991, is a London-based artist working in painting and moving image, as well as sculpture, text and installation, and was associate director of the east London arts organisation Auto Italia from 2020 to 2022. Chisenhale Gallery in Bow will give Holman a first solo exhibition in a UK institution from 1 October to 5 December 2027, for which they are making a new video installation.

3. Ufuoma Essi

Ufuoma Essi, born in 1995, is a London-based artist who works mainly in film, building new archives out of overlooked histories and Black feminist thought. Essi studied history at University College London and had a Projects exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2025. In 2027 the work tours Britain with British Art Show 10, curated by Ekow Eshun, which reaches Swansea from 12 February to 16 May, Bristol from 19 June to 19 September and Sheffield from 23 October.

4. Alex Margo Arden

Alex Margo Arden lives and works in London and uses the methods of theatre to look at how histories are made, restored and restaged. Accounts, of 2025, an installation made from mannequins rescued from museums, was bought for the Arts Council Collection at Frieze London. Arden is also in British Art Show 10, so the same tour dates apply.

5. Mohammed Z Rahman

Mohammed Z Rahman, born in 1997, is a British Bengali artist based in London who came to painting from social anthropology. Art Now at Tate Britain, which closed on 8 November 2026, hung the paintings inside two timber pavilions inspired by Bengali wedding canopies, drawing on love letters, songs, poems, recipes and dreams. Tate has also acquired two of Rahman's paintings, The Lovers and The Spaghetti House, through the Frieze Tate Fund.

6. Ken Nwadiogbu

Ken Nwadiogbu, born in Nigeria and based in London, trained as an engineer before taking a master's in painting at the Royal College of Art. In February 2026 Nwadiogbu won the Degussa Young Generation Art Award, worth €10,000 with a solo presentation at Frieze London. That show, I Know the Shadows Will Always Be There, set a recurring masquerade figure in scenes of contemporary Western life, and the award brings a year-long touring exhibition to follow.

7. Racheal Crowther

Racheal Crowther, born in Dublin in 1991 and based in London, makes work about governance, surveillance and institutional power, and how they tangle with systems of care. On 4 November 2026 Crowther was named one of five visual artists to receive a £75,000 Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Artists, alongside Linda Bell, Rory Pilgrim, Georgina Starr and Hayley Tompkins. Recent solo shows include Galerie Noah Klink in Berlin in 2025.

8. Rhea Storr

Rhea Storr is one of four artists shortlisted for the 2026 Film London Jarman Award, the prize for artists working with moving image, and the winner of the £10,000 award is named on 24 November. Storr's films include A Protest, a Celebration, a Mixed Message, of 2018, and Here is the Imagination of the Black Radical, of 2020. The shortlisted artists are on show at Whitechapel Gallery from 17 November to 13 December 2026.

9. Sadia Pineda Hameed

Sadia Pineda Hameed is also on the Jarman Award shortlist, with a five-channel video that combines archival footage with the family's own home movies to tell the story of the artist's mother's migration from the Philippines to Britain. It is part of the same Whitechapel display.

10. Charli-Ann Padilla

Charli-Ann Padilla, a recent fine art graduate of the University of the West of England in Bristol, won the 2026 Freelands Painting Prize with Vanilla flavoured coke, the first time the prize's jury has named a single winner. The prize, for final-year painting students, comes with £1,000 of painting materials and advice. Of everyone here, Padilla is at the earliest stage of a career.

Where to see them

Dates	Where	Artists
17 November to 13 December 2026	Whitechapel Gallery, London	Rhea Storr, Sadia Pineda Hameed
12 February to 16 May 2027	British Art Show 10, Swansea	Ufuoma Essi, Alex Margo Arden
16 February to 13 June 2027	Dulwich Picture Gallery, London	Sahara Longe
19 June to 19 September 2027	British Art Show 10, Bristol	Ufuoma Essi, Alex Margo Arden
1 October to 5 December 2027	Chisenhale Gallery, London	Deborah-Joyce Holman
From 23 October 2027	British Art Show 10, Sheffield	Ufuoma Essi, Alex Margo Arden

Dates come from the galleries and their announcements, and can change, so check before you travel. Our guide to the art events of 2027 has the rest of next year's calendar.

Buying work by emerging artists

Work by artists at this stage is usually sold by their galleries, often to a waiting list, and the price is set by the gallery rather than by auction results. Ask for an invoice that records the title, date, medium and size, and read any terms about reselling, since some galleries ask buyers to offer the work back to them first. Few of these artists have a resale record yet, so buy what you want to live with.

Whitebank Fine Art finds works for buyers and acts as an art advisor for collectors starting out. Our guide to affordable art prints and editions in the UK covers other ways to begin a collection. There is no obligation to proceed.

Cover: Gwen John, A Corner of the Artist's Room in Paris, 1907 to 1909. National Museum Wales, Cardiff. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.