8 Emerging Artists that Made a Splash at Felix and Post-Fair in Los Angeles
These standout talents discovered at Felix LA and the inaugural Post-Fair should be on every art collector’s acquisition list
Six weeks after the deadly wildfires ravaged Los Angeles, destroying homes and property, the city’s art community united to successfully mount the return of the Felix LA art fair at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and the launch of the new Post-Fair at the Old Santa Monica Post Office.
The seventh edition of Felix LA, which took place February 19-23, showcased over 60 exhibitors from around the world in the poolside cabanas and tower suites of the historic hotel, while the inaugural Post-Fair, which ran February 20–22, featured 29 local, national, and international art galleries and project spaces in the landmarked building’s sprawling interior.
After surveying hundreds of artworks in various media, here are eight artists who should be on every alert art collector’s acquisition list.
Tara Walters, Presented by Nina Johnson Gallery at Felix LA
Tara Walters envisions the scenes she paints, starting by tuning into something outside the realm of the conscious mind and reaching a deep state where intellect and imagination meet. Working with fire to make smoke paintings while studying at Savannah College of Art and Design, she switched to using ocean water to give her more spiritual paintings a special sparkle after earning an MFA from Art Center College of Design in 2020. Painting such uplifting elements of nature as flowers, trees, animals, sunrises, mountains, and rainbows with a vibrant palette of soft, layered colors, Walters douses the canvases in her Los Angeles studio with Pacific Ocean water gathered near her Malibu Village home, which she and her musician husband recently lost in the devastating fires. Tapping into spiritual concerns, her painting Blue (For Jack Bendes)—one of three new canvases Nina Johnson brought to her cabana space—memorializes the passing of a legendary surfer while depicting the renewal of life with a sense of optimism.
