Alvaro Barrington The Most Influential Artists of 2024

Ever since completing his MFA at the Slade School of Art in 2017, Alvaro Barrington has gone from strength to strength. BLUM, Thaddaeus Ropac, and MASSIMODECARLO are just a few solo show venues for the Venezuelan-born artist, whose paintings often incorporate burlap, postcards, and clothing.

This year, however, Barrington’s biggest moment was not a top-tier gallery show (though he had some of those, at Mendes Wood DM and Thaddaeus Ropac, for instance). Instead, it was a monumental commission at Tate Britain. His installation, titled Grace, is a three-part project that uses sound, painting, and sculpture to celebrate the influence of women in Black culture. It also serves as a personal tribute, honoring women from his own life: his grandmother, mother, and a close friend, Samantha. At the heart of the installation is a 4-meter-tall aluminum sculpture of a dancing woman.

All the while, the London artist’s presence has been felt worldwide, from inclusion in group shows at El Espacio 23 in Miami and James Fuentes in New York to his colorful installations at the Glastonbury Festival in England. Perhaps most notably, in the Parcours sector of Art Basel in June, Barrington unveiled Come Home (2024), an architectural installation inside the city’s Tropical Zone supermarket—a space serving the local Afro and Latin American communities. This structure, built from traditional Caribbean materials like burlap and timber, featured new abstract paintings from his “Hibiscus” series.