When London's National Portrait Gallery chose Issy Wood to launch its new contemporary programme, it picked the painter whose style now shapes much of young British painting. Her mini-exhibition of 12 self-portraits, on view through February 28, 2027, shows the trademarks that made her famous: unexpected framing, soft focus and surfaces with a seductive, film-like glow.

One large canvas places the viewer uncomfortably close to the artist's face as she sips a Diet Coke wearing a Korean skincare mask. In her still lifes, ordinary objects such as porcelain ware, puffer jackets and leather car seats become objects of fixation, their context cropped away so the mundane turns ambiguous and faintly unsettling. Wood, 33, turned down an offer to join Gagosian in 2020 and made her auction debut the following year.

Her influence is now visible across art fairs, where younger painters borrow the same tight framing and sensual surfaces. Rachel Sharpe, Tomas Harker, Jesse Zuo and Julia Maiuri are among those working in her wake, while Joseph Yaeger, who draws on vintage film stills, topped Artnet's Zero to Hero leaderboard last year after joining Modern Art in London and Gladstone Gallery in New York.

Manchester painter Louise Giovanelli, recruited by White Cube in 2022 shortly before her 30th birthday, opens a new show at the London gallery on November 20, and artists including Jordan Sears, Maude Corriveau and Poppy Jones have built on Wood's approach. Her Self Portrait 91, shown at Frieze London last month, confirms that the style she pioneered continues to dominate the commercial landscape.