Anoushka Mirchandani (Indian, B. 1988)
By the Perequê-Áçu 2025 Courtesy of the artist and Jonathan Carver Moore Gallery.
By the Perequê-Áçu 2025 Courtesy of the artist and Jonathan Carver Moore Gallery.
The art world is constantly hungry for fresh perspectives and new voices. To identify who might be the next name worth knowing, we asked four curators and four art advisors from around the world to each pick one artist they believe is poised to break out in 2026. Fittingly, the artists they have selected address some of the most urgent topics of our time, from migration and diasporic identity, to science, technology, and our evolving relationship with the environment. As we navigate the uncertainties awaiting us in the coming year, these artists can offer particularly creative insights.
Anoushka Mirchandani (b. 1988)
South Asian art has been making waves in the art world this year. One name that caught the attention of the San Francisco-based art advisor Laura Smith Sweeney is Anoushka Mirchandani. The Indian-born, San Francisco-based Mirchandani examines the diasporic identity and experience as an Indian immigrant and a woman in her work, which has been featured in gallery exhibitions and art fairs in the U.S, India, Europe, and the Gulf region.
Sweeney came across the artist’s “magnetic” work last December, when Mirchandani took part in her two-month artist residency program at Jonathan Carver Moore Gallery. She was drawn to Mirchandani’s “striking use of color and line,” the layered process, and how she merges her figures into their surroundings, while tackling a complex subject matter. “The boundaries between body and these landscapes blur, creating scenes that feel intimate and dreamlike,” said Sweeney, an executive member of the Association of Professional Art Advisors. She was also impressed by the artist’s “clarity about her intentions, especially around the fragmented identity and emotional complexity of being an immigrant in the United States.”
Sweeney said Mirchandani is poised to have a big break in 2026. The artist is currently a resident of the competitive Silver Art Projects at the World Trade Center in New York, and her institutional solo debut at the ICA San José opens on January 16.
