Insta-Cool

Hit follow on these fiercely individualistic Instagram artists who are showing us whole new ways in which to see the world

Mumbai-born artist Rithika Merchant hit it big this year with her drawings making it to the spring/summer 2018 Paris Fashion Week runway. The Barcelona-based artist and alumnus of Parsons the New School for Design, New York, was invited to collaborate with Chloé’s newly-appointed chief Natacha Ramsey-Levi for the latter’s debut RTW collection. Merchant’s gouache and ink creations combine botanical elements with anthropomorphism, folklore, occult and mythology resulting in a completely fresh and original aesthetic. Her Instagram offers a generous peek at her work, her beautiful studio space and her dreamy artist life.

The self-taught Slovakian artist Mária Švarbová uses the medium of photography to craft dream-like images of swimmers and swimming pools in an aqueous, pastel palette. Her artfully composed pictures are set in public spaces built in the Socialist era, and reveal meticulous styling, and careful art direction. Švarbová’s photos seem suspended in time, yet her pared-down aesthetic and deliberate symmetry lend a futuristic, almost robotic feel to them. It’s this dichotomy that draws us in and keeps us engaged. Hit follow and lose yourself in her parallel universe.

The Brooklyn-based artist Riya Hamid, who originally hails from Bangladesh, uses art as a means to embrace her cultural identity and have uncomfortable conversations about mental illness, suicide, abuse, gender norms, body image and religion. Her portraits, drawn with pencils and ink on paper, incorporate motifs from the Bengali household she grew up in along with contrasting elements that reinforce her now American identity. Hamid has also modelled for H&M and Lonely Lingerie and was featured in Vogue’s list of 100 inspiring people.

Alexa Meade paints directly on her subjects creating dynamic, three-dimensional artworks that blur the boundaries between painting, installation and performance art. She refers to her process as a sort of reverse trompe-l’oeil where 3D subjects and environments are given a 2D treatment. This year the Los Angeles-based artist’s radical approach to portraiture landed her an exciting collaboration with Ariana Grande for her single God Is a Woman. Follow Meade on Instagram to watch her push the boundaries of her artistic practice.

Jessica So Ren Tang’s work shines a magical light on what it means to be a Chinese American woman living and working in San Francisco. She uses traditional embroidery techniques to breathe life into her subjects — modern Asian women juxtaposed with everyday objects like instant noodle cups, crockery and candy wrappers. Her objective is to not just present a cheeky take on the art of embroidery but to use it as a means to obscure perceived identity and imagine life beyond the shackles of societal stereotyping.