Collecting art today is difficult – there is so much on offer that it's easy to make mistakes.

Trying to identify what to buy is confused by outraged headlines in the newspapers, by extraordinary prices at auctions, and by galleries and an internet awash with mediocre and derivative art.

Some galleries champion work which will drain your bank account, but which has no critical merit. They cater for wealthy customers with walls to fill, but the work is often more luxury good than fine art. They are not interested in quality, only sales. The experience of owning such work effectively begins and ends with the purchase.

Artwork is expensive and lives with you and on your wall for years. It is a very particular kind of cultural, emotional and public investment and you don’t want to pay thousands for derivative 'decoration', or tens of thousands for the latest art market darling, when you can take some time to think, learn or be guided towards work that will reward in all sorts of ways.

Of course, when buying for yourself the most important thing is that you like the work, but if it can also be a great emotional and financial investment then all the better. Happily, behind the spin and underneath the high street mediocrity lies a world of intelligent and progressive art – art which is really affordable and delivers as an enlightening cultural artefact.

For those who take those first steps into this art world, as collectors and investors, they find it is an endlessly fascinating and rewarding place. Allowing an advisor to guide you through your first search and acquisition is a good way to ensure that you are looking in the right places. With no particular brief to guide this selection, I’d suggest the following as interesting artists to invest in now.

Pam Evelyn

Following her BA at the Slade School of Art, Pam Evelyn is currently in her last year of her MA at the prestigious Royal College of Art in London. Normally students should be left alone and allowed time to complete their studies and mature their practice before the rapacious market starts clawing at their door, but Pam seems ready. She is still experimenting, and each work has moved on from that last, but they are consistently good. Bold, intelligent abstractions, I believe that we are seeing the beginnings of a really credible career – one that would wisely be invested in now.

Caleb Hahne

Caleb Hahne, from Denver, Colorado, is represented by 1969 Gallery in New York. His work has been shown internationally, and recent distinctive shows have gained real attention. Focusing on ambience rather than content, his intimate works address and explore themes of vulnerability and boyhood through a romanticization of mundane moments captured on paper or canvas. Delving into his childhood as a Jewish Latin-American in rural Colorado, his pieces examine how we visualize and perceive our past experiences, transforming actual events into dreamlike realities on canvas. There is something about the beautifully painted simplicity, and dreamlike palette, which is successfully keying into a contemporary mood.

Sarah Slappey

There is a group of really interesting female painters in New York at the moment – all creating idiosyncratic zeitgeist imagery. Sarah Slappey stands out as one who is receiving increasing institutional recognition. Born in1984 in Columbia, South Carolina, Sarah is now based in Brooklyn and represented by Sargent’s Daughters.

Her forms are both seductive and grotesque- an embrace of femininity and a rejection of its limits that addresses how it feels to be in a female body. The undulating and twisting forms push our notions of the “acceptable” female form past the delicate, reigned-in curves of the traditional nude women of Western art history. Slappey’s bodies heave, push, squeeze, fold, tickle, and melt together. Any grace in the forms is undercut with subtle violence or aggression.

Mixed in with the muscular elements are objects traditionally associated with women: pearls, lipsticks, tampon strings. Slappey nods to her Southern roots while she simultaneously grinds it underfoot.

Clyde Hopkins

The late Clyde Hopkins is a British artist who passed away in 2018 and whose reassessment is well underway. A couple of months ago the Tate added one to their collection, and a second retrospective exhibition at London’s APT gallery is planned for next year. There is enormous good will expressed towards Hopkins as both a teacher and as an artist, and the work is extraordinary. Spanning four decades, you can track the shifts in his practice at the same time as noting the continuity. Some of the large paintings in particular are really astounding and are being recognised as museum worthy. I particularly love the early expressionist work and the transitional paintings.

Klara Hosnedlova

Klara Hosnedlova is an incredible artist. Her installations involve designed spaces, costumes, performance and beautifully crafted embroidered drawings – they are so superbly made that you initially doubt they can be embroidered. Represented by Hunt Kastner in the Czech Republic, Klára Hosnedlová’s work explores historical sentiments as they crystallize in modern and contemporary design and architecture. Her sculptures and environments are indebted to Eastern European histories and the past collective mythologies. She has not yet received full international acclaim and currently her prices are very reasonable, but it is incredibly difficult to secure one.

Originally published in Halcyon Lifestyle