Dalton Gata, Couple of Collectors, 2018

A pair of particularly engaging collectors stand at the centre of this captivating painting by the Cuban artist Dalton Gata, one of Elephant’s recently selected artists to watch. Behind them lies an almost mythical mountainscape, in front a phallic sculpture (or sex toy, perhaps) made of glass. As is typical of Gata’s oeuvre, his characters are exquisitely dressed—it comes as no surprise to learn he was formally a fashion designer—and purposefully gender ambiguous, in line with the painter’s self-proclaimed desire to dissolve normative methods of classification. The atmosphere is surreal and slightly disquieting (another Gata trait), leaving the scene open to interpretation.