Author: The Auction Collective
Published: 10 Oct 2025
Top 5 Artists | Nicole Ching
A spotlight on the top 5 next gen artists from those that know. This week's Top 5 comes from Nicole Ching, the founder of Museum 2050 and a Specialist Art Advisor at Christie's.
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Nicole is a Specialist Advisor in the 20/21st Department at Christie's London. Before entering the world of auctions, Nicole came from the museum space, having worked at Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum, Shanghai’s Long Museum and written for ArtAsiaPacific. She also founded Museum 2050 in Beijing in 2017, a platform for investigating key issues about the future of cultural institutions in the Greater China region and for providing a place for young museum professionals to converse, share ideas and create a vibrant museum community.
Prior to Christie’s, Nicole worked at Sotheby's for three years, where she was a Deputy Director in the Private Client Group. Nicole graduated from UCL with a BA in Classics and read for an MSc in Visual, Material, and Museum Anthropology at Oxford and was chosen to be a Schwarzman Scholar at Tsinghua University where she received a Masters of Global Affairs in International Relations. She is fluent in English, Mandarin and Cantonese.
All of the artworks below are available for bidding in Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale on 16 October 2025 at 1 PM BST.
Image Credit: @chingchella
Header Image: Profile of the Snow Maiden (Russian Folktales, Collector's Edition, translated by Uchida Risako, Fukuinkan Shoten, 1989, pp. 132-133). Image taken from Yu Nishimura’s website.
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Somaya Critchlow
Somaya Critchlow, Disjunctive (Wig), 2020, signed and dated 'SOMAYA CRITCHLOW 2020' (on the overlap). Oil on linen, 8 3⁄8 x 6in. (21.2 x 15.1cm.) Image taken from Christie's website.
Somaya Critchlow (b. 1993, London) lives and works in London. She obtained her BA in painting at the University of Brighton before joining The Royal Drawing School, where she earned a Postgraduate Diploma in 2017.
"Somaya creates miniature paintings and drawings of nude or partially nude female figures, drawing influence from Old Masters such as Velázquez. I love the deep, rich tones and fluid brushwork in her work and also the sense of mystery and nostalgia. Through her self-possessed female figures, she explores themes of race, gender and culture, challenging traditional ideas of identity, status and authority in portraiture."
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Poppy Jones
Poppy Jones, Clear/Shine, 2022, signed and dated 'Poppy Jones 2022' (on the reverse). Oil and watercolour on suede, in artist's frame, 10 ¼ x 7 5/8in. (26 x 19.5cm.) Image taken from Christie's website.
Poppy Jones was born in London in 1985. She received her BA in Fine Art from Falmouth College of Art in 2007 before completing an MA in Fine Art Printmaking from London’s Royal College of Art in 2010.
"Working on the edge of photorealism, Poppy Jones uses monotype printing and overpainting to transfer her own photographs onto panels of recycled silk, suede and cotton. Her work captures fragments of her surroundings, evoking nostalgia through subtle shifts in colour, shadow and tone. I love the gentle celebration of the fleeting beauty of everyday moments and it is no wonder that her solo booth in Hong Kong last Art Basel opened to such widespread acclaim."
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Ernst Yohji Jaeger
Ernst Yohji Jaeger, Untitled 4, 2020, signed 'Jaeger' (on the reverse). Oil on canvas, 23 ¾ x 17 ¾in. (60.2 x 45cm.) Image taken from Christie's website.
"Ernst Yohji Jaeger is a German-born artist who has studied and lived in both Vienna and Tokyo. His diverse cultural heritage and inspirations are reflected in his work. His anonymous, androgynous figures inhabit a contemplative, enchanted world, creating a quiet space that invites reflection. I love that his pieces feel like little time capsules, telling universal stories that one can interpret in a manifold of ways."
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Justin Caguiat
Justin Caguiat, Untitled, 2018, oil, gouache and printed paper collage on unstretched canvas, 54 ¾ x 36in. (139 x 91.4cm.) Image taken from Christie's website.
Justin Caguiat (b. 1989, Tokyo) lives and works in California and New York. He has been involved in organising artist-run spaces and collectives and has participated in readings and performances.
"Drawing deeply from art history and memory, Justin Caguiat’s unique contemporary voice reflects a fusion of European and Japanese influences. I love the dreamlike scenes he creates where figures and landscapes appear and disappear like a palimpsest, inviting viewers to drift through a world shaped by memory and imagination. By working on unstretched canvas or linen with imperfect edges, he gives his work a raw and visceral materiality."
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Yu Nishimura
Yu Nishimura, Under the Trees, 2022, signed and dated ‘Yu Nishimura 2022’ (on the stretcher). Oil on canvas, 6 3⁄8 x 51 3/8in. (194 x 130.5cm.) Image taken from Christie's website.
Yu Nishimura (b. 1982, Kanagawa, Japan) graduated from Tama Art University in 2004 and lives and works in Kanagawa.
"Since his graduation in 2004, Nishimura has been an interesting artist to watch closely. Through his practice, he seeks to capture the essence of painting beyond the traditional idea of figurative portraiture. What I find particularly admirable in his canvases is that he is able to push the boundaries of traditional Japanese painting to successfully embrace local perspectives and mass subcultures. However, there is a sense of nostalgia in his art, a memory with which I think people can resonate and that is totally unique."
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