{"id":239669,"date":"2025-10-25T10:33:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T10:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/239669\/"},"modified":"2025-10-25T10:33:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T10:33:12","slug":"11-contemporary-artists-inspired-by-art-decos-sleek-geometry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/239669\/","title":{"rendered":"11 Contemporary Artists Inspired by Art Deco\u2019s Sleek Geometry"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been 100 years since the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris, the glittering 1925 showcase that crystallized Art Deco<\/a> as a global movement. Though the style appeared earlier, it was this exhibition that gave it coherence and momentum. Emerging from the wreckage of World War I, Art Deco offered something radically new: sharp geometry, sleek symmetry, and a vision of modern luxury. Gone was the heavy ornamentation of the 19th century; in its place came elegance, speed, and shine. It was an attitude that transformed architecture, fashion, and design, defining the look of the era.<\/p>\n

This centennial year brings a wave of tributes across some of the world\u2019s most stylish capitals. Paris\u2019s Mus\u00e9e des Arts D\u00e9coratifs<\/a> presents \u201c1925\u20132025: One Hundred Years of Art Deco\u201d which is open through April 2026. Louis Vuitton has also revisited its storied role in the movement with an immersive exhibition (on through 2026) of more than 300 heritage objects at its space LV Dream. In the U.S., the Sarasota Art Museum presents \u201cArt Deco: The Golden Age of Illustration,\u201d while Miami\u2019s Art Deco Museum joins Mumbai\u2019s Bhau Daji Lad Museum as part of \u201cArt Deco Alive!\u201d\u2014a twin-city celebration of some of the most beautifully preserved Deco architecture in the world. <\/p>\n

Together, these exhibitions reaffirm Art Deco\u2019s enduring legacy as a language of glamour and innovation. In the same spirit, we\u2019re spotlighting 11 contemporary artists who are channelling the style\u2019s geometric rigor, bold contrasts, and stylized elegance\u2014carrying its spirit forward into the 21st century.<\/p>\n

B. 1974, Washington, North Carolina. Lives and works in New York City. \"Jim\"Jim<\/p>\n

With over two decades of practice and strong institutional recognition, Jim Gaylord<\/a> has held multiple solo exhibitions across the United States, including at New York\u2019s Deanna Evans Projects, the University of Pennsylvania, and most recently at Sperone Westwater<\/a> in New York, his representing gallery. <\/p>\n

The latter exhibition, \u201cChiaroscuro<\/a>,\u201d featured Gaylord\u2019s signature meticulous paper cutouts which balance ancient symbolism with futuristic design, echoing Art Deco\u2019s fascination with history and progress. Using X-Acto knives and glue, he builds layered abstractions with architectural precision. \u201cI want them to possess a kind of structural integrity and occupy space in a convincing way,\u201d Gaylord explained in an email to Artsy. In works like Excellent Crest (2024) and Fortunate Orbit (2025), stacked planes of paper create a sense of both organic movement and engineered order, channelling timeless motifs\u2014an eye, a flame, a snake\u2014that evoke both ancient iconography and contemporary branding.<\/p>\n

Gaylord recognizes how ornament frequently draws from the natural world. \u201cSymmetry, fractals, pattern, and repetition reveal a sense of order and logic in plants, animals and minerals,\u201d he noted. Like Art Deco designers who stylized feathers, waves, and sunbursts into geometric decoration, he translates organic rhythms into abstraction in his work. Inspired by structures like New York\u2019s General Electric Building, which was built in 1931, his cutouts incorporate decoration and architecture, history and speculation. While delicate paper remains central to his practice, Gaylord is now experimenting with 3D scanning, seen in recent works such as Orb<\/a> (2025), as a way to expand his aesthetic into stone, metal, or resin. <\/p>\n

Gaylord\u2019s works are held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art<\/a>, New York and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive<\/a>.<\/p>\n

B. 1972, Mexico City. Lives and works in Mexico City. \"Edgar\"Edgar<\/p>\n

Edgar Orlaineta<\/a> has exhibited his playful hybrid sculptures across the Americas, Europe, and Dubai\u2014from his 2024 solo exhibitions \u201cModern Mystic\u201d at Proyectos Monclova<\/a> in Mexico City to \u201cWhat We See of Things is the Thing<\/a>s\u201d at Carbon 12 in Dubai. The artist, who professes a deep love for design and its history, approaches Art Deco with both admiration and critique. Drawing inspiration from artists such as Edward Wadsworth<\/a>, Gerrit Rietveld<\/a>, and Pierre Legrain<\/a>, he uses techniques from mass production as well as handcraft to explore the tension between the industrial and the handmade<\/p>\n

In Miss Expanding Universe (2022)\u2014an ode to designer Isamu Noguchi<\/a> and his ballerina muse Ruth Page\u2014Orlaineta\u2019s use of brass, glass, walnut, quartzite, and steel evokes Deco\u2019s material luxury, curved lines, and polished surfaces. \u201cI think of geometry as a grid that lets images, texts, and ideas hang together,\u201d he told Artsy in an interview. Color, minimal yet deliberate, becomes a \u201cfocal point rather than decoration.\u201d He structured his early works using symmetry, like Totem (After Ettore Sottsass) (2008)\u2014a tribute to the Italian designer whose Memphis<\/a> movement blended Art Deco elegance with Pop art<\/a> playfulness.<\/p>\n

By contrast, Wonderwall (2020) combines locally-sourced recycled woods rooted in Mexican craft traditions\u2014such as bocote, chicozapote, purpleheart, and cedar\u2014and imported species like walnut and beech, juxtaposing Central American craftsmanship with European modernist<\/a> materials. \u201cBy combining mass-produced items with crafted elements and natural materials, I try to create sculptures that reflect modernism\u2019s formal clarity while exposing its contradictions,\u201d he said. Orlaineta is currently preparing for his upcoming exhibition \u201cThe Pataphysic Craftsman\u201d at Swivel Gallery<\/a> which opens November 13.<\/p>\n

B. 1980, Evanston, Illinois. Lives and works in Twentynine Palms, California.\"Edie<\/p>\n

Known for both intimate works on paper and ambitious public projects, Edie Fake<\/a> has created large-scale murals in Los Angeles and Chicago. Represented by Western\u202fExhibitions in Chicago and Broadway\u202fGallery in New York, he has held commercial and institutional solo exhibitions at major venues such as the Berkeley\u202f Art \u202fMuseum and The\u202fDrawing\u202fCenter in New York. Inspired by the visual language of Art Deco, he reimagines the movement\u2019s ornamental precision as a framework for emotion and transformation. \u201cI love working with symmetry and am always drawn to it,\u201d he explained, \u201cbut my instinct is often to interrupt pure symmetries\u2014to make things symmetrical up to a point and then throw something different into the composition.\u201d This tension animates his screenprint The Processing Department (2017), where mirrored axes, rhythmic linework, and layered ornament recall Deco\u2019s structural harmony, though subtly unsettled through color and line breaks. <\/p>\n

Inspired by Chicago\u2019s Motor Club Building, built in 1929, Fake transforms Deco\u2019s elegance into a meditation on resilience, adaptation, and emotional space. \u201cArt Deco\u2019s \u2018modernity\u2019 is now tethered to history and the winding paths of building use\u2026.while it\u2019s incredible to see a building in a preserved state, it\u2019s also wonderful to see it get woven into a patchwork of style,\u201d he told Artsy. <\/p>\n

B. 1985, Seoul. Lives and works in Jersey City, New Jersey. \"Ji\"Ji<\/p>\n

Emerging San Francisco\u2013based painter Ji Young Yoon<\/a> transforms cityscapes into dreamy abstract paintings of illumination, shadow, and geometry. Her admiration for Art Deco is both personal and aesthetic. She recalls being captivated by her hometown\u2019s 140 New Montgomery building\u2014a landmark West Coast Deco skyscraper celebrated for its setbacks and dramatic shadow play. In particular, she noticed its step-like forms and vertical rhythm, qualities that continue to shape her own compositions. \u201cI simplify urban landscapes into geometric shapes in relation to the light source that creates shadows and reflections, and I dress them with vibrant colors,\u201d she explained in an email to Artsy.<\/p>\n

In her ongoing series \u201cIlluminated Geometrics,\u201d currently exhibited online as part of the group show \u201cCommon Ground\u201d with PXP Contemporary<\/a>, Yoon channels the crisp clarity of architecture into radiant paintings that extend Deco\u2019s legacy of symmetry and stylized modernity. By distilling buildings into sharp geometries animated by glow and reflection, she echoes Deco\u2019s celebration of proportion and ornament while reimagining it for a contemporary world\u2014continuing the tradition of transforming the modern city into luminous design.<\/p>\n

B. 1982, Providence, Rhode Island. Lives and works in Los Angeles.\"Lily\"Lily<\/p>\n

Abstract painter Lily Stockman<\/a> first encountered Art Deco while living in Jaipur, India, studying traditional pigments and painting\u2014an experience which informed her grasp of light and color. Traveling through the Thar Desert, she was struck by the faded havelis (multi-story townhouses or mansions) of the Mandawa region, 1940s and \u201950s trading houses that fused local craft with continental design. \u201cMandawa is filled with crumbling Art Deco havelis untouched since they were abandoned,\u201d she said, \u201cbut the crown jewel of Indo Deco design is Umaid Bhawan Palace in Jodhpur.\u201d Later, Los Angeles\u2019s old Art Deco cinemas added to her sense of geometry, symmetry, and rhythm. Though her palette and brushwork have since loosened, Stockman still sees those structures as the \u201cfundamental scaffolding\u201d of her compositions\u2014serene planes of color poised between discipline and sensuality. <\/p>\n

In her recent solo show \u201cBook of Hours<\/a>\u201d at Charles Moffett<\/a>, her fourth with the gallery, Stockman explored big questions on space and time through meditative, richly colored abstractions inspired by devotional manuscripts. A highlight, Athenian Spring (2025), an oil on linen work measuring 62-by-50 inches, combines geometric abstraction with a depiction of a flower in bloom. It comprises a central biomorphic form gently pulsing against a radiant mint-green background.<\/p>\n

In addition to Charles Moffett, Stockman has exhibited with Gagosian<\/a>, Almine Rech<\/a>, and MASSIMODECARLO<\/a>, her representing gallery. In spring 2026, she will present her second solo exhibition at the latter gallery, this time in its Hong Kong location. <\/p>\n

B. 1987, Yamaguchi, Japan. Lives and works in Yamaguchi, Japan.\"Masaaki\"Masaaki<\/p>\n

Masaaki Yonemoto<\/a>\u2019s radiant sculptures, recently exhibited at the Armory Show 2025<\/a> by his representing gallery, A Lighthouse Called Kanata<\/a>, echo Art Deco\u2019s skyscraper dreams: towers of geometry and brilliance that once symbolized the future of modern cities. \u201cThe image of New York\u2019s skyscrapers, a symbol of Art Deco, was deeply etched in my mind as a boyhood dream of a futuristic city,\u201d he explained in an email to Artsy. His long-running \u201cSkyscraper\u201d series embodies that memory, channelling Deco\u2019s fascination with vertical lines, symmetry, and modern materials through his own Zen-inflected minimalism.<\/p>\n

Working with glass and mirrors, Yonemoto creates glinting aquamarine objects that twist and shimmer. He draws inspiration from Frank Lloyd Wright<\/a>, whose organic architecture sought harmony with nature, and Ren\u00e9 Lalique<\/a>, whose jewelry and glass works embodied Art Deco\u2019s elegance. While still emerging on the art scene, Yonemoto has already been recognized for his mastery of glass, graduating top of his class in Glass Sculpture at Kurashiki University of Science and the Arts, where he received the school\u2019s Headmaster Award. <\/p>\n

For Yonemoto, craftsmanship is inseparable from vision: \u201cLight brutally exposes minute irregularities\u2026so it is essential to use the finest techniques and to never forget awe for nature and materials.\u201d By stripping away excess to reveal his materials\u2019 essence, his sculptures become meditations on illumination and form\u2014offering a serene counterpoint to our contemporary technological excess while continuing Art Deco\u2019s legacy of innovation and timeless beauty.<\/p>\n

B. 1966, Augusta, Georgia. Lives in Queens and works in Brooklyn.\"Rico\"Rico<\/p>\n

From Harlem to Penn Station, Rico Gatson<\/a>, who is represented by Miles McEnery Gallery<\/a>, has brought his language of radiant color and geometry into galleries, museums, and public spaces. For the last 30 years, the New York\u2013based artist has channeled memory, transcendence, and identity into works that are visually striking and historically grounded. At the Studio Museum in Harlem<\/a>, his exhibition \u201cIcons 2007\u20132017\u201d honored Black cultural and political figures, surrounding their portraits with rays of vivid, contrasting color that suggested both halos and explosive energy fields.<\/p>\n

\u201cGeometry in my work is a symbolic language\u2014circles, triangles, fractals, and mathematical patterns carry memory, connecting history, spirituality, politics, and identity,\u201d Gatson told Artsy. For example, in Harriet #4<\/a> (2017) he collages a photo of the abolitionist Harriet Tubman\u2019s portrait with painted radiating stripes that echo both sacred auras and Art Deco\u2019s sunburst motifs. Similarly, Untitled (Megastar)<\/a> (2025) translates that celestial energy into pure abstraction, its concentric rays recalling Deco\u2019s fascination with light, symmetry, and spirit. Gatson cites pioneering dancer Josephine Baker\u2019s cosmopolitan vitality and the Chrysler Building as 1920s inspirations for his blurring of the boundaries between art, architecture, and performance.<\/p>\n

B. 1979, Puerto Rico. Lives and works in New York City. \"\"\"Glendalys<\/p>\n

Installation image of Glendalys Medina, Cohoba ritual , 2022\u201323 at El Museo del Barrio. Photo by On White Wall. Courtesy of the Artist, New York.<\/p>\n

\u201cGeometry is my entry point into reality,\u201d Glendalys Medina<\/a> explained in an email to Artsy. What might appear ornamental, Medina adds, is \u201cnot decorating; I\u2019m declaring,\u201d positioning pattern as a statement of presence and heritage in mixed-media works. <\/p>\n

A Nuyorican (someone with Puerto Rican heritage who lives in New York) artist, Medina often combines nails, wire, thread, and paint to construct textured, lyrical compositions that merge drawing, sculpture, and painting. Medina is currently developing major projects\u2014including commissions for the Bronx Museum<\/a>\u2019s exhibition \u201cWe Are Family\u201d (forthcoming in 2026) and a public artwork for Walter Gladwin Park (opening 2028). In these works, Medina combines imagery from Antillean Ta\u00edno culture, hip-hop cadence, and diasporic archives to explore how cultural identity is represented and preserved.<\/p>\n

In Atabey (2022\u201323), a major commission for El Museo del Barrio<\/a>, the artist formed a radiant image out of gold-hammered nails and thread, drawing on petroglyphs from a ceremonial site in Puerto Rico. The circular embellishment crowning the figure echoes hip-hop aesthetics, recalling the form of stylized boombox speakers. The radiant gold evokes the Ta\u00edno reverence for guan\u00edn (a sacred metal associated with divine energy), while also recalling Art Deco\u2019s metallic opulence and geometric precision. <\/p>\n

B. 1989, Sweden. Lives and works in Brussels, Belgium.\"Sofia\"Sofia<\/p>\n

Sofia Pashaei<\/a>\u2019s meticulously composed figures recall the portraits of Tamara de Lempicka<\/a>, the Polish-born painter whose sleek, stylized depictions of women epitomized Art Deco glamour and modern femininity in the early 20th century. Yet Pashaei transforms that elegance into a meditation on memory and migration. Her subjects emerge from a lived exchange between cultures, reflecting both restraint and opulence. \u201cGrowing up in Sweden gave me a sense of restraint and balance, while my Iranian heritage, especially Qajar portraiture, introduced me to flatness, stylized figures, and the drama of symmetry,\u201d she explained in an email to Artsy.<\/p>\n

A recent work, Carried Through Us (2025), exemplifies this synthesis. In the oil-on-linen painting, the artist uses muted tones and measured geometry against a background of \u201cPersian Blue,\u201d a recurring hue that links her works across time with her ancestors. Where Art Deco once borrowed from Persian and Islamic design, Pashaei reclaims those motifs as inheritance\u2014melding lineage, discipline, and emotion into a diasporic language that redefines Deco\u2019s legacy. <\/p>\n

An emerging painter who also works as an animation director, Pashaei has presented solo and duo exhibitions in Brussels at Ballon Rouge. She has also participated in group exhibitions in New York City, including at Hashimoto Contemporary<\/a> and The Hole<\/a>. She will have another solo show later this year at Rafael P\u00e9rez Hernando<\/a>. <\/p>\n

B. 1981, Lansing, Michigan. Lives and works in San Francisco.\"Koak,\"Koak,<\/p>\n

Through sinuous forms and expressive gestures, Koak<\/a> renders interior life visible, distilling figuration into fluid lines. Using a restrained color palette rooted in primary hues, the artist works across painting, drawing, and sculpture. Koak, who is represented by Perrotin<\/a> (New York), Altman Siegel (San Francisco), and Union Pacific (London), cites her admiration for Ert\u00e9<\/a>\u2014the Russian-born French illustrator and stage designer often called the \u201cFather of Art Deco.\u201d His work, which stretched from art to theater and interior design, epitomized the movement\u2019s elegance and theatrical vitality. \u201cEach [work] feels animated by a current of life that extends through the limbs, into the fingertips, and beyond the body, as if that vitality continues into the surrounding space,\u201d she said in an interview.<\/p>\n

Koak\u2019s work nods to this poise and stylization while transforming Art Deco\u2019s refinement into a language of vulnerability and emotional depth. In The Barricade (2024), for instance, a silhouette composed of thick, curving lines holds a child-like figure. The surrounding motifs\u2014an undulating curtain, raindrops, a looping tornado, and a lightning bolt\u2014form a delicate structure of protection and exposure. <\/p>\n

Informed by philosophical theories of comic art, which she draws on in her art, Koak explores how the smallest artistic gesture can alter meaning. Aesthetic ornamentation (like vases, textiles, frames, and cityscapes) helps to meld her figures into their environments in her works. She describes her process as \u201csimplification in service of emotional precision, movement, vulnerability, and internal turbulence.\u201d<\/p>\n

B. 1973, Tucson, Arizona. Lives and works in Los Angeles.\"Eamon<\/p>\n

Eamon Ore-Giron<\/a>\u2019s practice fuses geometry and vivid color compositions that evoke both symmetry and rupture. \u201cI don\u2019t like when things are too zipped-up and perfect,\u201d Ore-Giron said, noting that he favors arrangements that leave space for the viewer\u2019s imagination. For example, his monumental series of paintings \u201cInfinite Regress\u201d (2015\u2013present) are precise and pulsating constellations of circles, arcs and stepped forms. Executed mostly in flashe paint and mineral pigments on raw linen, these works contain oscillating and radiating shapes\u2014often across expansive swatches of gold\u2014turning into complex configurations that evoke cosmic, biomorphic and mythological forms. <\/p>\n

Expanding his practice beyond painting, Ore-Giron has also developed an ongoing collaboration with Mexican artisans to produce large-scale tile mosaics, such as Talking Shit with Viracocha\u2019s Rainbow (variation III) (2024), created with Cer\u00e1mica Suro and based on a painting shown in the 2024 Whitney Biennial<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Drawing on Latin American design traditions and Indigenous artifacts such as Incan gold nose rings and Peruvian weavings, Ore-Giron sees his practice in conversation with Art Deco\u2019s global eclecticism. \u201cIn order to forge this new Art Deco style, it was important to look back at a global past for inspiration,\u201d he explained in an interview. His references to ancient forms echo Deco\u2019s borrowings from Egyptian and Mayan design, yet his approach reimagines modernism through a contemporary, decolonial lens. <\/p>\n

Represented by James Cohan Gallery, Ore-Giron has exhibited at major museum exhibitions, including the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art and The Contemporary Austin. His upcoming solo exhibition at James Cohan Gallery opens in early November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been 100 years since the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris, the glittering…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[94775,449,458,459,64,63,460,143261,143262,134,143267,143263,143260,143264,77478,143265,143266],"class_list":{"0":"post-239669","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-artist-list","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-artsanddesign","12":"tag-au","13":"tag-australia","14":"tag-design","15":"tag-edgar-orlaineta","16":"tag-edie-fake","17":"tag-entertainment","18":"tag-glendalys-medina","19":"tag-ji-young-yoon","20":"tag-jim-gaylord","21":"tag-lily-stockman","22":"tag-list","23":"tag-masaaki-yonemoto","24":"tag-rico-gatson"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}