New York painter Leon Xu has been named one of the ten artists in the Artsy Vanguard 2027, the platform's annual list of emerging talent, chosen this year from more than 900 nominations submitted by galleries around the world. Now in its ninth year, the Vanguard spotlights artists whose work is, in Artsy's words, fresh, urgent and distinctly their own.

Xu, born in 1995 in Zhongshan, China, and raised in San Francisco, moved to New York in 2019 and works from a studio in Chinatown, close to the streets that feed his paintings. He says a painting begins with a physical sensation he calls "brain tingles", and his hazy, glowing canvases dwell on fleeting moments and the quiet emotional charge of everyday life. His career took off during the pandemic, when he began painting daily and sharing the work on Instagram.

His first solo exhibition, "Wishful Thinking", opened at Zurich's Mai 36 Galerie in 2022, followed by "Afterglow" in 2025, and the gallery announced its representation of Xu in July 2026. His work has since been shown at Art Basel, ARCOmadrid, Art Collaboration Kyoto and Art Basel Miami Beach, and a major painting is due to enter the collection of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, in December.

The other nine artists in the 2027 cohort are Aiza Ahmed, Danielle Fretwell, Diambe, Donyel Ivy-Royal, Maddy Inez, Mmangaliso Nzuza, Sammi Lynch, Tania Franco Klein and Xolo Cuintle. For the first time, Artsy is also running a Vanguard Acquisition Prize with the Brooklyn Museum, with a jury including the museum's director Anne Pasternak selecting one artist whose work will enter the museum's permanent collection. The winner will be announced on 13 November.