The 6 Artists to Watch at Frieze London 2026

Autumn has officially descended upon London, and with the cooler weather comes the annual Frieze London art fair, located at the picturesque The Regent’s Park once more. Running through October 18, the fair gathers a selection of contemporary artists, with emerging voices on show alongside established talents. As always, the rest of the city rises to the occasion: galleries open their most ambitious shows of the season, major museums unveil grand exhibitions, and visual art surfaces in the most unexpected corners. It all adds up to London’s busiest (and most thrilling) week on the art calendar. With so many artworks, events, shows, and folks jostling for attention, it can be hard to know where to look first. Below, a roundup of artists to watch during Frieze Art Week 2026.

Eilen Itzel do Espírito Santo

Working across drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture, installation, and performance, Eilen Itzel do Espírito Santo creates pieces that are impossible to ignore. The Dominican American artist’s kaleidoscopic compositions brim with joy and emotion, pairing lively color with layered symbols and figuration to investigate the histories and identities of Latin Americans and members of the African diaspora. Deeply informed by Ifá, the Yoruba spiritual tradition, her practice celebrates beauty, resilience, and care as forms of resistance. She presents a solo booth with her gallery, Bolanle Contemporary, as part of Frieze London’s Artist-to-Artist section, in which established artists select emerging peers (Espírito Santo was nominated by fellow Dominican artist Firelei Báez).

Ella Fleck

In her immersive installations, London-based artist Ella Fleck explores how sex and the psyche become entangled in the hidden systems of technology—using sound, language, scent, and architecture to engage all the senses. Her solo presentation with Los Angeles gallery Ehrlich Steinberg in Frieze London’s Focus section, training material (aria) (2026), won this year’s Camden Art Centre Emerging Artist Award. To gather material for the piece, Fleck spent six weeks as “Elliot,” a chat operator messaging users on behalf of a male content creator. The resulting work interrogates heterosexual male fantasies, with male voices performing conversations that rise from a platform built from raised floor tiles typically found in data centers. Devices fitted beneath turn the sound into vibrations visitors can physically feel.

Studio Lenca

Born José Campos in El Salvador, Studio Lenca spent his childhood as an undocumented migrant in the United States. That deeply personal experience runs through his work, which explores themes of displacement and belonging. Pushing back against the invisibility of migrant and Salvadoran identity, his vibrant paintings feature regal figures who hold the viewer’s gaze with pride, dressed in unmissable hats and outfits done in bright hues. At Frieze London, the artist transforms the Deutsche Bank lounge into Ojalá, an installation of bubblegum-pink walls hung with his signature paintings, some drawn directly onto the surface. Suspended overhead, colorful Salvadoran hammocks cradle replicas of volcanic rocks from the country, calling forth a piece of his homeland in the heart of The Regent’s Park.

Ivana Bašić

The human body is at the center of Ivana Bašić’s artistic practice. Working with materials such as glass, steel, alabaster, wax, and oil paint, alongside intangible forces like breath and pressure, the Belgrade-born artist creates otherworldly sculptures and installations that explore the vulnerability and transformation of the body. At Frieze Sculpture (on view through November 1), Bašić presents Metanoia, a monumental sculpture produced in collaboration with Saba Mahdavi and Sur-Mesure Engineering Studio, inspired by the concrete war memorials erected across the former Yugoslavia between 1945 and the 1990s. Informed by the turmoil Bašić witnessed as a child during her homeland’s downfall, the verdigris, flower-like work reflects on what survives when nations and selves come undone.

Salman Toor

Steeped in art history, Salman Toor’s narrative paintings conjure scenes that, while fictional, are rooted in the artist’s own memories. Wry yet thought-provoking, they capture the full range of human connection, from friendship and love to solitude and alienation. This fall, the Pakistani-born, New York–based painter presents his first solo exhibition in Europe, “Salman Toor: Someone Like You,” at the Courtauld Gallery (on view through January 10, 2027). As Toor said in a statement, the show’s 19 paintings “depict queer and immigrant lives that straddle different cultures and inhabit the tension between intimacy and exposure, belonging and estrangement.”

Tarek Atoui

Through installations, performances, and experimental environments, Beirut-born artist and composer Tarek Atoui pushes the boundaries of sound as an artistic medium. For this year’s Hyundai Commission at Tate Modern, (on view through April 11, 2027), he has turned the vast Turbine Hall into a sonic landscape where ancient families of instruments meet electronic technology, and where sound is meant to be felt with the whole body. Wind blows through hanging bamboo pipes to play Asian mouth organs, robotic mallets beat drums, and horns are scattered around the room. Long pieces of fabric sway in the hall’s air currents. All elements emit distinct sounds, while microphones record everything and the artist’s software remixes and plays it back, making every visit a unique experience.