10 leading artists to look out for at Tokyo Gendai art fair in Yokohama

World-renowned Chinese contemporary artist Ai Weiwei is best known for his powerful aesthetic statements that relate to the geopolitical world. He uses a range of mediums in his artworks, from installations and ceramics to architecture and film. Ai Weiwei will be showing with Tang Contemporary Art at Tokyo Gendai.

Living and working between Kyoto and Venice, Ritsue Mishima is a Japanese designer and sculptor known for collaborating with glassmiths on Italy’s Murano Island to create clear glass sculptures that blend into their surroundings. Look forward to seeing Mishima’s works at this year’s fair under ShugoArts.

Pace Gallery is representing New York-born artist and photographer Robert Longo at the upcoming fair. Longo is known for his interest in political activism and media imagery, which he portrays through drawings with charcoal on thick-textured surfaces, giving his works a deep and intricate contrast.

American conceptual artist Alex Da Corte works with a variety of different media ranging from video works and installations to paintings and sculptures. His works often showcase a mix of these elements to create vivid, fantastical environments. Da Corte’s pieces will be displayed with Sadie Coles HQ at the upcoming art fair.

Japanese artist Yusuke Asai is appearing at Tokyo Gendai with Tokyo-based Gallery Anomaly. Asai's works showcase his unrestrained creativity in the use of everyday materials like soil, water, dust, flour, tape and pens. His main motifs feature a mix of plants, animals, people and myth-like creatures that encompass his unique take on an eco-structure.

Acclaimed Chinese artist Xu Ning will be represented by Tokyo’s Tomio Koyama Gallery at Tokyo Gendai. Xu’s artworks feature colour and lines on large canvases, painted with remarkable precision using an extremely thin and small fine-point brush. Additional splashes of dripping paint add to the texture of her works, giving them a sense of dynamism.

British painter Sophie Barber draws inspiration from the world around her and reproduces aggregations of her immediate surroundings in her paintings. You’ll be able to catch Barber’s works with London’s Alison Jacques gallery.

Senegalese ceramicist Seyni Awa Camara is recognised for her totem-style sculptures that portray maternity scenes and mythical animals. She has had solo exhibitions as well as showcases at renowned museums around the world and will be showing at Tokyo Gendai with Perrotin.

Contemporary Filipino artist Manuel Ocampo’s artworks bring together historical and religious symbolism to provoke dark humour. You'll often find historical art, cartoonish elements and punk references in his paintings. Ocampo will be appearing at Tokyo Gendai with Veta by Fer Francés, one of Madrid’s top art galleries.

Hong Kong's Kwai Fung Hin Art Gallery is representing Nicolas Party at Tokyo Gendai. Party is a multi-media interdisciplinary Swiss artist best known for his figurative works that both challenge and celebrate the practice of painting.