10 South American Abstract Artists to Watch in 2025

South American abstract art is experiencing a remarkable renaissance, propelled by unprecedented market validation and global institutional recognition.

This resurgence is not merely curatorial trend-spotting; it is quantified by the soaring auction prices for mid-century masters like Lygia Pape and Hélio Oiticica and cemented by the representation of historical estates and contemporary practitioners by elite global galleries such as Hauser & Wirth, Pace, and David Zwirner.

Simultaneously, museums from the Getty to the Museum of Modern Art have undertaken serious scholarly reappraisals of movements like Neo-Concretism and Kinetic Art, moving them from the periphery to the center of global art history.

The ten artists highlighted here are the inheritors and innovators of this revitalized tradition, leveraging its potent visual language to explore contemporary issues of identity, materiality, and place.

Ad Minoliti (Argentina)

Ad Minoliti (b. 1980) has emerged as one of the most innovative voices in contemporary South American abstraction, creating what they term "post-geometric" works that use "geometry and color to build non-binary speculative fictions." Their major exhibition "Manifestación pluriversal" at Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (September 2024-February 2025) has introduced American audiences to their distinctive approach to abstraction as social practice.

Minoliti's work draws on Argentina's rich tradition of geometric abstraction while completely reimagining its possibilities. Their "candy palettes" and playful formal investigations create what The Guardian described as "non-binary geometry": abstract works that challenge traditional binary thinking through purely visual means. Recent projects have explored themes including queerness, feminism, and speculative futures, demonstrating how abstract art can engage with contemporary social issues.

Their exhibition "Nature is Queer" (2024) and participation in "The Feminist School of Painting" at Galerie Crèvecoeur demonstrate their growing international recognition. Minoliti's work represents a new generation of South American artists using abstraction to imagine alternative futures and challenge established social structures.

Bruno Dunley (Brazil)

Bruno Dunley (b. 1984, Petrópolis) has established himself as what critics call a "painter's painter": an artist whose work demonstrates deep understanding of painting's fundamental properties while pushing the medium into new territories. His recent solo exhibition "Pequenas Alegrias" (Small Joys) at Nara Roesler Rio de Janeiro (April-June 2024) showcased his mature approach to abstraction as a process of constant revision and refinement.

Dunley's paintings reveal themselves slowly, built through layers of application, editing, and erasure. His restrained gestures create works that seem to hover between representation and pure abstraction, with forms that suggest landscape, architecture, or pure emotion depending on the viewer's perspective. Critics have noted his work's relationship to both Alfredo Volpi's geometric investigations and the more painterly approaches of contemporary European artists like Luc Tuymans.

His 2023 exhibition "Clouds" at Nara Roesler New York explored abstraction as "an abstract occurrence," examining how natural phenomena can be translated into purely formal investigations.

Currently represented by Nara Roesler, Dunley continues to develop a uniquely Brazilian approach to contemporary painting that honors the country's modernist legacy while remaining thoroughly contemporary.

Cristina Ghetti (Argentina/Spain)

Argentine-born Cristina Ghetti (b. 1969) works from Valencia, Spain, where she has developed a distinctive approach to geometric abstraction that bridges Op Art, Geometric Abstraction, and Kinetic Art. Holding a Master of Visual Arts and Multimedia and having completed a doctoral thesis titled "Post Medial Geometry" at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Ghetti brings both artistic intuition and academic rigor to her practice.

Her paintings employ rigorous geometric systems that create subtle perceptual shifts, making static compositions appear to pulse and breathe. Working within the tradition of Op Art, Ghetti's serial color structures create what she describes as "visual music": patterns that seem to generate their own acoustic properties through purely visual means. Her technique involves creating digital compositions that trick the mind into perceiving movement and depth, which she then translates into acrylic paintings on canvas.

Ghetti's work has been exhibited extensively, including at MACBA Buenos Aires, the Argentine Embassy in Washington DC, and the Frost Art Museum in Miami. Her work is held in permanent collections including the National Museum of Contemporary Art and Design of San José, Costa Rica, and the Municipal Museum of Plastic Arts Eduardo Sívori in Buenos Aires, demonstrating her continued connection to the South American art scene despite her Spanish base.

Daniela Marin (Venezuela/Peru)

Venezuelan-born Daniela Marin (b. 1977) has established herself as one of the most compelling voices in contemporary South American abstraction from her base in Lima, Peru. A graduate of the prestigious Altos de Chavón School of Design, Marin creates works that pulse with architectural precision while maintaining an almost musical rhythm in their color relationships.

Her paintings demonstrate what could be called "constructive lyricism": each canvas built through methodical layering of geometric forms that somehow transcend their mathematical origins to achieve something deeply emotional. The luminosity she achieves through her careful color orchestration has drawn comparisons to the great Venezuelan kinetic artists, yet her work remains distinctly contemporary in its conceptual rigor.

Currently represented by IdeelArt, Marin's work reflects the cross-cultural dialogue between her Venezuelan heritage and her adopted Peruvian home, creating abstractions that speak to the broader Latin American experience of migration and cultural synthesis.

Francisca Aninat (Chile)

Chilean artist Francisca Aninat has developed one of the most distinctive approaches to abstract painting in contemporary South American art. Her process, literally tearing painted canvases apart and reassembling them through stitching, creates works that function as both paintings and textile objects, challenging traditional boundaries between media.

Her recent solo exhibition "Hills in the Distance" at Bendana-Pinel in Paris (through July 2024) demonstrated how her torn and stitched canvases create what she calls "tactile abstraction." Each work becomes a meditation on memory, trauma, and healing, with the physical act of repair becoming central to the work's meaning.

Aninat's process draws attention to painting's fundamental materiality while creating works that speak to broader themes of fragmentation and reconstruction—themes that resonate powerfully in the context of Chile's complex political history. Her work is held in collections including Cambridge University's Women's Art Collection, and she continues to develop her unique approach to abstraction as both visual and physical experience.

Jaime Gili (Venezuela/UK)

London-based Venezuelan artist Jaime Gili has spent decades developing a distinctive approach to geometric abstraction that celebrates "the kineticism and optimism of mid-century Modernist art, architecture, and design" while remaining thoroughly contemporary in its concerns. His high-chroma hard-edge paintings create what one critic described as "electric geometry in motion."

Gili's work draws explicitly on Venezuela's rich tradition of kinetic and geometric art, but recharges these historical references for contemporary audiences. His paintings, prints, and public artworks demonstrate how Latin American modernist traditions can be revitalized without becoming merely nostalgic. Recent work has increasingly engaged with the political situation in his homeland, using abstract means to address concrete social realities.

Having lived and worked in the UK since 1996, Gili represents the global reach of South American abstract art. His work appears in major collections and continues to influence younger artists exploring the intersection of geometric abstraction and political engagement.

Johanna Unzueta (Chile)

Johanna Unzueta (b. 1974, Santiago) creates what might be called "warm minimalism"—geometric abstractions that employ natural materials and handmade processes to create works that feel both systematic and deeply human. Working between New York and Berlin, Unzueta has developed a distinctive practice that combines felt, wood, and drawing into unified systems.

Her recent exhibition "Naturalist" at Casey Kaplan (2024) showcased her mature approach to abstraction as a means of exploring relationships between natural and constructed environments. Her felt works, in particular, demonstrate how traditional craft techniques can be employed to create sophisticated abstract compositions that speak to both indigenous textile traditions and contemporary minimal art.

Unzueta's work addresses "notions of labor, productivity, and progress" through handmade processes that deliberately slow down artistic production. Her geometric compositions, created through intuitive expression rather than mathematical systems, result in works that feel both contemporary and timeless. She is also active in editorial design and artist publications, reflecting her broad engagement with visual culture.

Marina Perez Simão (Brazil)

Marina Perez Simão (b. 1980, Vitória) stands as one of Brazil's most celebrated contemporary abstract painters, with 2025 marking a watershed year for her international recognition. Her major institutional exhibition "Tuning Fork" at Instituto Tomie Ohtake (August-October 2025) represents her first major museum show in Brazil, while her participation in "Horizontes - Peintures brésiliennes" at Fondation Cartier in Paris (April-October 2023), has introduced her work to European audiences.

Represented by both Pace Gallery and Mendes Wood DM, Simão creates paintings that hover at the edge of landscape without ever quite becoming representational. Her saturated color zones seem to dissolve into pure atmosphere, creating works that function as much as emotional experiences as visual ones. Her process, based on the accumulation and juxtaposition of memories and images, results in paintings that feel both deeply personal and universally resonant.

Recent exhibitions include "Diffusion" at Mendes Wood DM Paris (2024) and "ZWIELICHT" at G2 Kunsthalle in Leipzig, demonstrating her growing international presence. Her work represents a distinctly Brazilian approach to abstraction, one that embraces both the country's rich modernist heritage and its contemporary global position.

Marina Weffort (Brazil)

Marina Weffort (b. 1980, São Paulo) represents the cutting edge of Brazilian textile abstraction, creating works that exist at the intersection of painting, sculpture, and craft. Represented by Galeria Luisa Strina, one of Brazil's most prestigious contemporary art galleries, Weffort works with painting, drawing, objects, and installations to investigate relationships between material, process, and meaning.

Her minimal textile abstractions employ cut and woven fabric to create lattice-like structures that seem to breathe with light. These works challenge traditional hierarchies between fine art and craft, demonstrating how textile techniques can be employed to create sophisticated abstract compositions that speak to both Brazilian cultural traditions and contemporary international art discourse.

Weffort's practice reflects a broader trend in contemporary Brazilian art toward material experimentation and process-based work. Her investigations into the relationships between different media result in works that feel both conceptually rigorous and sensuously appealing, representing a new generation of Brazilian artists expanding the possibilities of abstract art.

Martin Reyna (Argentina)

Martin Reyna has emerged as a master of what might be termed "liquid geometry." Working primarily in watercolor, a medium often dismissed in serious abstract discourse, Reyna creates large-scale works where gravity becomes his primary compositional tool. His vertical washes cascade down the paper with controlled spontaneity, creating atmospheric effects that suggest both natural phenomena and pure chromatic experience.

Based between Buenos Aires and Paris, Reyna's work bridges the gap between the gestural freedom of Abstract Expressionism and the color field investigations of artists like Helen Frankenthaler, but with a distinctly South American sensibility. His paintings often evoke the vast landscapes of the Argentine pampas, yet remain resolutely non-representational.

The artist's recent work has gained attention for its sophisticated understanding of how watercolor's inherent unpredictability can be harnessed to create works of surprising structural integrity. Each piece reads like a visual score, with color relationships that seem to generate their own internal music.

His work was recently the subject of a museum exhibition, "The Sound of Color," at Venezuela's MACA-Zulia, affirming his place within the broader context of Latin American abstraction.

Currently represented by IdeelArt, Reyna continues to develop his unique approach to abstraction through liquid media. 

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These ten artists represent the diversity and vitality of contemporary South American abstract art, each of them bringing a unique perspective to the ongoing dialogue between abstraction and identity, tradition and innovation.

What unites them is not a shared style or approach, but rather a commitment to pushing abstract art into new territories while remaining connected to the rich cultural traditions of their region. As South American art continues to gain international recognition, these artists are positioned to play crucial roles in defining what abstraction means in the 21st century.

Their work demonstrates that South American abstract art is not merely following international trends, but actively shaping them, creating new possibilities for how abstract art can engage with contemporary social, political, and cultural realities while maintaining its essential commitment to formal innovation and aesthetic experience.

Francis Berthomier

Featured Image: Double Wave  by Cristina Ghetti (2017, detail). All images courtesy of the artists.

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