Discover: Young Talent at Affordable Art Fair Brisbane 2025 offers collectors and art lovers the opportunity to engage with fresh perspectives, support artists at a pivotal stage in their careers, and snap up the artwork of rising talents before they ascend into stardom. 

This year’s selected artists explore themes of nostalgia, dreams, and connection to place and heritage, weaving personal narratives with broader cultural reflections. Let’s take a look.

Wendy Ma

Wendy Ma‘s recent ceramic collection is an intimate exploration of her growing distance from her birthplace, Hong Kong. After Chinese New Year, the artist felt a deep urge to reconnect with her culture, realising how much of its rich traditions she had forgotten. 

“Through virtual family chats, yum cha outings with my mother, and revisiting cherished memories, I sought to capture the comfort of childhood and Hong Kong’s customs, film, food, and places in ceramic form.”

This personal collection draws inspiration from Chinese art and Feng Shui symbols, such as dragons for protection and turtles for longevity, and serves as a tribute to her heritage and family.

Wendy Ma has always pushed the boundaries of conventional ceramic art. Her work invites users to embrace new perspectives, blending tradition with innovation. With a background in design and fashion, Wendy has been working with clay since 2015. Her pieces honour the artistry of Chinese ceramics from the Ming and Song dynasties, with a hope that, like Ming dynasty ceramics, they bring hope and prosperity to their new homes in these uncertain times.

Angelica Dimal

Next in our Discover: Young Talent Brisbane lineup is Angelica Dimal. She is an artist whose work continuously challenges the boundaries of perception, and whose artistic excellence earned her the Milani Family Award at her graduation exhibition. Based in Meanjin (Brisbane), Angelica is a graduate of QUT with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Visual Arts).

This year, Angelica will bring a selection of her smaller, home-friendly works for our Discover: Young Talent Brisbane exhibition, offering astute collectors the chance to elevate their collections with the innovative pieces of this rising talent.

Laura Pittam

Laura Pittam’s art is shaped by a deep longing for the Swiss-French heritage she was distanced from growing up in Australia. Through the Robyn Daw Scholarship at Logan Art Gallery, Laura began to explore this divide in her work. Using old photos of her mother, she found a new style of painting that felt more authentic to her practice. 

In Switzerland, the quiet moments spent in her grandmother’s chalet became a source of inspiration. The intimate scenes, from snow-covered mountains to firelit rooms, led her to paint on smaller canvases. 

“The small size [of each wooden support] makes the memories feel more intimate. Working small also allows me to be more gestural and looser, something I love seeing in the figurative works of past French Impressionists.“

Now, she’s experimenting with larger canvases and collage techniques to explore her connection to her mother and the passage of time.

Laura Pittam’s nostalgic works feel like a glimpse into treasured family moments: soft light, familiar faces, and the warmth of home. Embrace this energy into your own space by supporting Laura at our Brisbane Discover: Young Talent stand.

Lake Kelly

As a former therapist-turned-artist, Lake’s journey into the creative world is deeply intertwined with her passion for mental health and resilience. Her ongoing series of cloud paintings, Thoughts as Clouds, encapsulates her therapeutic background and reflects on the ever-changing nature of mental health. Inspired by mindfulness and self-awareness, the clouds represent the fluctuating states of emotion, from light and dreamy to heavy and turbulent.

Born into a family with roots in both Vietnam and Tasmania, Lake’s artistic journey has been shaped by Brisbane’s vibrant and diverse creative scene. She has contributed to projects like BrisAsia and Brisbane Canvas and continues to weave both art and music into public and private spaces.

“Growing up in West End as it boomed from a small town to a big city over the years, my artistic journey has been shaped by Brisbane’s creative scene. From performing at GOMA to collaborating with local brands like Aesop and Nagnata, painting for BrisAsia and Brisbane Canvas, I’m passionate about weaving art and music into public and private spaces.”

Toyah Robinson

Next on your radar of young talent to collect at our Brisbane 2025 fair is emerging artist Toyah Robinson. A 2023 QCAD graduate based in Meanjin, Toyah transforms the everyday into something deeply resonant. Her work refines familiar imagery into paintings that feel both personal and universal, exploring the interconnectedness of lived experience and place.

By reimagining ordinary moments, Robinson’s work becomes a quiet meditation on shared experience. A physical representation of the invisible threads that bind people to their surroundings and to one another. Her paintings serve as both reflection and reminder, urging viewers to slow down and notice the beauty in what already exists.

Will Turner

A two-time Brisbane Portrait Prize finalist (2022, 2023), Will pairs his visual storytelling with written narratives, often weaving short stories or poetry into his work. His no-nonsense approach to art is grounded in emotion and place, creating a body of work that speaks to both memory and movement.

Anabelle Honeyman

Anabelle Honeyman, a Gubbi Gubbi and Sunshine Coast-based artist, distills memory, nostalgia, and cultural narratives into luminous works on paper.

“While exploring family photos, I discovered old, water-damaged film slides that are around 60 years old. I learnt that they were in my grandmother’s house when it got flooded in 2011. They were transformed by chance and nature into unique artefacts. Their altered emulsion revealed beauty and a sense of time and memory.”

This line-up of young artists is a must-see, so don’t forget to purchase your tickets for the fair! We hope to see you 8 – 11 May at the Brisbane Showgrounds Exhibition Building.