Every week, Art to Collect by ArtDependence brings together an exceptional curation of works that reflect the pulse of contemporary art today, offering collectors, new and seasoned alike, a window into some of the most compelling creative practices around the world.
Every week, Art to Collect by ArtDependence brings together an exceptional curation of works that reflect the pulse of contemporary art today, offering collectors, new and seasoned alike, a window into some of the most compelling creative practices around the world. Here’s what you need to see this week:
Marit Otto: “I can experience art on many levels and in many different ways. Then I look for aesthetics and eloquence but also for a particular angle. I make contemporary engaged art. It has a certain urgency. It is reflecting us, people and the zeitgeist. Images speak louder than words and basically appeal very directly to our feelings. My images are something of a mix between activism and philosophy, they want to engage in dialogue.”
Marit Otto, Sea of Tranquility, 2025
Sven-Ulrik Beck Burchard's work lives somewhere between fantasy and nostalgia. He tries to recall fragments of things he has seen, or thinks he has seen - and connect them to memories and feelings from the past.
The artist is often searching for places or situations that can recreate the emotions he felt as a child, especially the wonder of experiencing something for the first time. There’s a soft tension between the familiar and the mysterious that he is drawn to — a feeling of freedom, untouched by doubt or judgment which many of us miss.
His drawings usually begin with a mood, a shape, a color, or a small, strange memory. Sven rarely knows what they mean when he starts. They unfold on their own, almost like messages from a quieter part of himself. If they leave behind a trace of something remembered, then perhaps they’re doing what they’re meant to. "For me, it’s about reconnecting with my inner child and creating from a place of play, curiosity, and freedom — without worrying about how things are “supposed” to be," he says.
Sven-Ulrik Beck Burchard, Dead men tell no Tales, 2025
Sylvia Batycka: "My work engages with female narratives and the aesthetics of absence, grounded primarily in the field of painting. Using a sartorial language—clothes, pattern, posture—and vernacular or archival photography as interlocutors, my practice mediates between past and present, photography and painting. The images hold on to traces, silences, and embodied memory: they insist on what is withheld and invite the viewer to dwell in the fraught intimacy between recognition and loss."
Sylvia Batycka, The Mother, 2023
Tom Colaux, a Belgian artist at the intersection of painting, photography, and audiovisual creation founded the agency CLXpictures and, for over ten years, Colaux has been developing a raw, instinctive, and visceral artistic language.
After a deep personal rupture, painting became his outlet. He paints like one writes in the dark — with no plan, no sketch, no filter. The faces emerge like ghosts he wasn’t expecting — but who already knew everything about him.
His canvases are filled with colorful faces, sometimes grotesque, often unsettling, appearing in a controlled chaos. They reflect the tension between the intimate and the social, between appearances and the silent scream within.
Tom Colaux: "Reading Journey to the End of the Night by Céline deeply influenced me. That novel taught me to paint what I feel, not what is expected of me — to go straight to the point, without decoration or compromise."
"I often accompany my work with short literary fragments“We pretend to be humble in those moments. But I went for a walk with them, and modestly, they advised me. I didn’t really know what to expect, and I kept saying good evening with the same enthusiasm, knowing no more than before.”
Between disillusioned poetry and tender lucidity,Tom Colaux traces — canvas after canvas — a map of the human condition.
Tom Colaux, Trouble, 2025
Kirsty Wain captures the living spirit of the landscape through bold, lyrical forms and a palette that transforms nature into something dreamlike. Drawing inspiration from the vibrant color of Fauvism, the expressive brushwork of Post-Impressionism, and the rhythmic patterning of Neo-Impressionism, she reimagines the natural world with her own contemporary sensibility.
In her work, ancient olive trees twist and sway with rhythmic energy, their trunks alive with color and movement. Vivid magentas, golden yellows, and cool blues break from literal representation, drawing the viewer into a heightened emotional space. Each brushstroke is both playful and deliberate, echoing the texture of bark and the warmth of Mediterranean light. Her paintings invite the viewer not just to see nature, but to feel its vitality and enduring presence.
Kirsty Wain, Olive Three on Cami de Altea, 2025
Elina V.G. is a watercolour artist born in Bulgaria and based in Copenhagen, Denmark. She crafts paintings to capture, document, and preserve memories and places, essentially building her own visual archive of realistic artworks that chronicle time.
Inspired by the worn, weathered beauty of Eastern European landscapes – the faded facades, the scratches, and the washed-out hues – she brings attention to often-overlooked details. Through her art, she invites viewers to see their surroundings with fresh eyes and appreciate the beauty in the everyday.
Elina V.G., Cold Morning, 2025
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