New York City is undoubtedly one of the best places in the world to see leading and coveted artists, but it’s on the walls of young galleries where viewers can find the rising stars of the art world. While succeeding in the city is difficult for both artists and gallerists, there are several organizations under 10 years old with current shows that are remarkable for their talent, diversity, and range of subject covered.

Derek Weisberg: A Form of Contemplation, Trotter&Sholer, September 9 - October 15

For his second solo show with Trotter&Sholer, Derek Weisberg created new ceramic vases, candlesticks, and sculptures that invite the viewer to participate by adding candles, flowers, or small offerings. The hand of the artist is always present in Weisberg’s work. Often revealing cracks and embracing the delicate nature of the material, his works are both solid and fragile, reflecting the artist’s exploration of the human experience.

Loss, grief, and the search for meaning come up throughout the show as the faces and figures thoughtfully look out at the viewer, asking visitors to pause and meditate. Weisberg’s work inspires contemplation and curiosity.

Trotter&Sholer took a leap of faith opening in September 2020 at the height of the pandemic, but the risk has undoubtedly paid off. In the two years since opening, the gallery has continually impressed with visually stunning exhibitions by emerging and mid-career artists who engage with critical issues including health, identity, and immigration.

​Taína Cruz: Woodland Sermon, HOUSING, September 7 - October 23

In Taína Cruz’s first New York solo show, Woodland Sermon at HOUSING, the artist explores her African American and Puerto Rican heritage, mining traditions from her family’s over 400-year history of West African and Caribbean folklore and mythicism. Her paintings, often figural, blend references to Afrofuturism and contemporary culture, in particular visual culture popularized online, with themes of ancestry, trauma, and colonization.

The works in the show, which include paintings, videos, sound installations, and small sculptures, feature a range of characters including faces that exaggerate the demon or witch stereotype. Cruz draws from her family’s traditions to preserve and continue the legacy of Black spirituality and ancient rituals.

Since its founding in 2017, HOUSING has supported countless emerging and mid-career artists of color with exhibitions and resources, including providing microgrants in times of need. An eye for talent, the gallery’s co-founder and director, KJ Freeman, is known for producing exhibitions that critically engage in social and political issues. While sales are important, HOUSING also works to support its artists’ careers in the long-term, taking careful consideration of the collectors and institutions with which they work.

Molly Greene: Omens, Kapp Kapp, September 17 - October 22

Molly Greene’s latest solo show at Kapp Kapp, Omens, showcases her surrealist, dreamy compositions and marks a shift to abstraction. The new works, which are larger than anything she's done before, continue Greene’s exploration of the world around us, but instead of representing images from nature and the body, she focuses on things we cannot see, like radio waves.

While creating these new works, she came up with the exhibition title, Omens, as a reflection of her understanding and acceptance of forces that are uncontrollable.

Twin brothers Sam and Daniel Kapp opened Kapp Kapp in 2019 with a space in their native Philadelphia and expanded to New York in January of 2020. The gallery, which aims to champion emerging and queer artists, moved into its current Tribeca space two years later in January of 2022. During that period, they also closed the Philadelphia location to fully focus on the New York business and give their artists a larger space to exhibit.

Katya Grokhovsky: Point A: Chapter One, Ortega y Gasset, September 10 - October 9

Ukrainian-born, Brooklyn-based artist Katya Grokhovsky’s solo show, Point A: Chapter One, at Ortega y Gasset brings together new works that reflect on her experiences with migration and her upbringing in Ukraine. Grokhovsky is known for her mixed-media installations, film, and performance pieces that often use repurposed, colorful materials like parachutes, clothes, and beach balls.

Her practice also includes sculptural works, drawing, and painting and addresses themes of the American dream and the complex feelings of anxiety, nostalgia, and alienation associated with migrating to a new country. Her latest work takes into consideration the concepts of cultural identity in the context of the current war with Russia and the ongoing global pandemic.

Ortega y Gasset is an artist-run curatorial collective and exhibition space. The non-profit supports exploratory and experimental art in order to foster artists’ creativity on a deeper level.

Radu Oreian: A sea of green and blue, 1969 Gallery, September 6 - October 22

A sea of green and blue is Radu Oreian’s debut American solo show. Born in Romania and based in France, Oreian works primarily in abstraction and explores a range of themes, including the histories and myths that form the human experience. Visually stunning, Oreian’s paintings are adorned with mosaics that lend an archaeological feel to the work, as if contemporary reimaginings of ancient frescoes.

Oreian’s paintings are remarkably rich, pulling the eye across the canvas as colors, shapes, textures, and materials intertwine. Though mainly abstract, his works often resemble biological imagery like human organs and cells. Recognizable symbols, faces, and architectural elements surface periodically.

1969 Gallery was founded in 2016 and has since helped to cultivate the careers of its artists. Specializing in painting, the gallery has introduced its Tribeca and Lower East Side audiences to a number of innovative talents.

Steward: The Ballad of a Super Super, Charles Moffett, September 9 - October 22

Born and raised in New York, artist and musician Kenny Rivero’s practice includes painting, drawing, collage, and sculpture. Among the themes Rivero explores is his hybrid religious upbringing, including Christianity, Vodun, Santeria, and Afro-Caribbean practices, and his Afro-Dominican American identity.

In his latest solo show, Steward: The Ballad of a Super Super at Charles Moffett, the artist presents new paintings that draw inspiration from his native Washington Heights, current home in the Bronx, and ancestral home in Santiago and el Cibáo. While some paintings allude to specific places, like Moon Over Miami, there is an overall suspension of reality as small fragments of people and places, perhaps real, perhaps imagined, emerge from dark backgrounds. Showcasing Rivero’s ability to work across scales, the paintings in the show range from nearly 6 feet by 6 feet to as small as 8 inches by 8 inches.

Founded in 2018 to support emerging artists, Charles Moffett has since built an impressive roster of artists, many of whom have moved well beyond the emerging stage with the gallery’s support.

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