Body politics: four up-and-coming artists exploring feminism and gender to look out for at the Affordable Art Fair

Having a home filled with genuine contemporary artworks rather than posters and photos might seem impossible to the average, wallet-conscious Londoner.

But you don’t have to have Charles Saatchi’s taste for controversy, or his budget, to snap up a work by one of the hot new names on the art scene.

The Affordable Art Fair’s autumn show has an entire section dedicated to the work of newly graduated artists, curated by the Cob Gallery’s Cassie Beadle.

The Recent Graduates exhibition within the show is a great place to discover brand new names fresh from art school and pick up a fabulous original art work, which could be a future museum piece.

Beadle says she selected several of the artists for their exploration of 2017’s zeitgeist themes of gender and feminism.

Here we pick the best of the bunch to look out for at this year’s fair.

Romily Alice Walden

Based between the UK and Berlin, Walden creates neon sculptures exploring the importance of bodies in the digital age.

“My interests are about the gendered body and the effect post-digital culture has had on the way we used our bodies. How important is having a body when we communicate so much online?

"With the three works I’m showing at the fair, I wanted to look at the cyborg body so the figures don’t have heads or hands and I tried to keep the wiring exposed to keep that digital feeling.”

The tension between the physical and the digital is also explored in Walden’s use of neon.

“I fell in love with neon a few years ago. Working with it is really hands on, pretty much all neon signs are handmade – there’s human labour involved, even if it just says ‘open’. But neon’s quite magical to look at, I think we’re attracted to it in the same way we’re drawn to screens.”

Catch her now; Walden has two shows coming up next year, one in London and one in Liepzig, which are sure to get the word out.

Gaizka Saracibar

Gender anxiety is not the preserve of women alone. Edinburgh-based painter, Gaizka Saracibar, explores codes of masculinity and how men in mainstream media are portrayed on social media through his work.

For his photographic series, titled ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being A Man’, Saracibar re-works selfies of heterosexual white men, collected online using social media hashtags, drawing inspiration from Francis Bacon portraits, Lucien Freud’s male nudes and Egon Schiele’s self-portraits.

Rosa Luetchford

Rosa Luetchford paints portraits of forgotten female artists throughout history and up to the present day.

Her paintings raise the profile and status of these women as artists in their own right, rather than portraying them as 'muses' providing inspiration for great male painters.

Luetchford depicts more than one woman on each canvas, showing the women's bodies as joined from the waist up and laying the emphasis and focus on their faces.

"The act of painting a woman in a powerful position is an act of reclaiming her status," says Luetchford. "Although their bodies are united, their gazes are their own."

Connor Coulston

Giant gummy bears covered in Spice Girls lyrics and reinterpreted ceramic poodles are among the objects assembled in Connor Coulston's 'granny kitsch' shrine.

Made from clay, glass and found objects, Coulston's work offers a strong personal narrative looking back on his sexually confused, Posh Spice-obssessed 14-year-old self with poignant nostalgic humour.

Influenced by Jeff Koons, Tracey Emin and Grayson Perry, the installation and component pieces are both broadly socio-political and personal.