Class of 2026: Goldsmiths

Good morning, all.

Today we’re bringing you the final instalment of our 2026 degree show round-ups. Last week the Goldsmiths MFA show came to a close and while this year’s cohort produced work across many mediums, we are suckers for a painting, and the talents of these five emerging artists really stood out to us.

From the school that gave us Bridget Riley, Lucian Freud, and much of the YBA generation, here are our top picks from this year’s graduating class:

1. Fanie Buys

@fanie_nani

Fanie Buys is a South African-born artist based in London, working predominantly in painting but also with ceramics and a variety of other media. His practice draws on his experience of growing up queer in a conservative Afrikaans town and explores the tension between self-expression, acceptance and the expectations of wider society. This tension comes through in the contrast between sharply realised details, loosely sketched areas and more abstract passages of colour in his compositions. This painterly application of familiar imagery gives each work an emotional charge that leaves his paintings feeling like distant memories slipping in and out of focus.

2. Sabaat Kareem

@sabaatkareem

Detailed, illustrative, narrative-driven and almost jewelled are how we would describe Sabaat Kareem’s works. They draw on fantastical folklore, mythology, fairy tales and religious allegory and use these inherited stories as a way of approaching more complex human experiences. We loved the detail in the below work of a tiny winged figure wearing a tall crown and sitting cross-legged atop a planet, doodling. Kareem’s works have the familiarity of book illustration with seducingly mysterious undertones.

3. Troy Yihao Liang

@thatflowerdude

Troy Yihao Liang is a London-based artist whose monochrome paintings draw on online imagery and the strange social behaviours that emerge through digital life. His work explores how ideas around love, sexuality, racism and masculinity are performed across online communities, often focusing on the absurdity of these interactions and what they reveal about human nature. Translating virtual experiences into uncanny and psychologically charged compositions, their muted palettes and surreal figures bring to mind the work of Tetsuya Ishida, particularly in the way everyday life becomes slightly unsettling and unreal.

4. Alaina Cherry

@lanie_cherry

Alaina Cherry is an American painter based in London. Using her own body and experiences as a starting point, Cherry explores Black femininity, sexuality and the tension between being seen and being objectified. Her fleshy application of muted nudes mixed with vivid contour gives her figures a radiating physical presence while also embracing vulnerability and the messiness of discovering and asserting one’s identity.

5. Kim Sang-hyuk

@whamwha

Based in London, Korean artist Kim Sang-hyuk takes images connected to historical events and isolates them from their original context. Through this process, he considers how small actions, images and gestures can move beyond their original intentions, gathering new meanings over time. In doing so, he is able to transform imagery through his own personal lens and, in turn, render compositions that are gloriously strange, with an almost otherworldly manner. Painting convincingly with luminous neon hues is notoriously difficult, but he handles this with impressive control, resulting in striking works that glow from within.