Driven to Abstraction Day 3

In the March Issue of Dazed & Confused, visual arts editor Francesca Gavin celebrated the return of abstract painting in art today. Alongside the full feature published here, this week we've updated daily profiles on her nine new abstract artists to watch out for - including Alex Hubbard, Niall McClelland and Keltie Ferris - concluding today with Katy Moran, Jayson Musson and Josh Smith:

Katy Moran:

Set to exhibit as part of the group show Painter Painter at the Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis, the Manchester-born, London-based artist Katy Moran is exhibiting new work alongside 14 other abstract painters including Matt Connors, Sarah Crowner and Rosy Keyser. Despite her gestured and scuffled brushstrokes, Moran uses reserved colours, working through a wide range of pale greys, mauvish browns, yellowish tans and white that tend to lend an air of dignity. Intended as a snapshot of studio practice, the show's co-curator Eric Crosby says: “I think there’s a sense of optimism in painting today that we’ve been lacking. The weight critically that’s always implied by every gesture in the history of painting is dissolving in ways that are opening up new possibilities for the medium.”

Born in the Bronx and based in Brooklyn, New York, the multi-disciplinary artist Jayson Musson (who incidentally was part of the Philadelphian rap group Plastic Little), also writes, and makes YouTube videos hosted by his alter ego Hennessy Youngman. Alongside these outlets, his series of paintings include the Miscellaneous Things That Resemble Paintings, and Barack Obama Battles the Pink Robots, which sees The President in a variety of heroic scenarios from battling crude oil to saving kitties. For his latest show, the more abstract Halcyon Days pieces are made of cut-up Coogi sweaters stretched and stitched together.

Using the letters of his own name in various configurations to form a new subject matter, the Tennessee-born and New York-based artist Josh Smith works with stockpiled typefaces and various forms of assemblage. Taking away their functions, the words, scribbles and symbols merge as a cacophony of appropriated expressions, whereby Smith questions the hierarchical structures of which meaning is created.