Three Must-See Artists at Artexpo New York

Redwood Art Group, the nation’s leader in exhibitions and event production, media, and marketing for the global art community, prepares for its highly anticipated four-day showcase, Artexpo New York 2026, taking place at Pier 36, located at 299 South Street in Manhattan, from Thursday, April 9 to Sunday, April 12.

The annual fine art destination, now in its 49th year, will host more than 170 innovative exhibiting galleries, art publishers and dealers, and artists from around the globe, across 70,000 square feet of convention space, showcasing original work of 1000+ artists that includes prints, paintings, drawings, sculptures, photography, ceramics, giclee, lithographs and glass works, among other contemporary and fine art. 

Among the plethora of artists featured at this year’s fair are three outstanding talents that are not to be missed.

Puerto Rican born Luis Alvarez Roure, currently based in New Jersey, is an award-winning artist renowned for his figure and still-life paintings, as well as his portraits of prominent personalities in the performing arts, government, academia, and corporate sectors. His style is highly influenced by the masters of the past, and he has been praised as a gifted artist with a virtuoso technique, capable of capturing the sublime emotions that come from connecting with and observing his subjects.

Alvarez Roure's works are collected by many distinguished institutions, including the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, Princeton University, the Museu Europeu d’Art Modern in Barcelona, Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, the Federal Reserve, The Players of New York, Palacio Santa Catalina (La Fortaleza) in San Juan, Puerto Rico, UConn University, Houston University Law Center, and Steinway Hall in New York City. He has also exhibited at the Kemper Art Museum, the Salmagundi Club, the New Salem Museum and Academy, and the Michele and Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts.

In 2022, Luis won the Draper Grand Prize and the People's Choice Award at the 24th Portrait Society of America's International Portrait Competition. Additionally, he was a finalist at the prestigious Outwin 2019 Boochever Portrait Competition, a three-time finalist at the Art Renewal Center International Salon Competition and a finalist at the Concurso Internacional de Pintura "Figurativas 2015" in Barcelona, Spain.

His portrait of iconic composer Philip Glass, acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in 2018, has been featured extensively in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s programs and was chosen by Glass himself to be the cover of his solo piano recording: Philip Glass Solo, released in January 2024. Other notable portraits by Alvarez Roure include those of GRAMMY Award-winning violinist Joshua Bell (also acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in 2020), legendary Academy Award-winning actor José Ferrer, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Paul Volcker, Governor of Puerto Rico Pedro Pierluisi, actress-playwright Anna Deavere Smith, American community development leader and founder of the New Community Corporation Monsignor William J. Linder, opera singer and Kennedy Center Honoree Justino Díaz, and renowned contemporary classical composer Roberto Sierra, among others.

Barry E. Jackson is based in Los Angeles and spent much of his career as a Production Designer, creating environments for film. His work contributed to major motion pictures including The Nightmare Before Christmas, Shrek, The Grinch, Horton Hears a Who!, and The Prince of Egypt.

Several years ago, Jackson transitioned from the world of entertainment design to focus on his own work in fine art. His current body of work, Public Strangers, explores figures drawn from memory. These are not portraits of specific individuals, but rather impressions—figures that feel familiar, as though encountered before but not fully known.

The work exists in the space between recognition and anonymity, where a narrative is suggested but never defined. There is no setting to anchor the figure, and no story to resolve it.

Working in oil allows for a physical, intuitive process—layering, pushing, and at times disrupting the surface—so that the material itself carries emotional weight. The image is not simply depicted; it is constructed, erased, and rediscovered over time.

The remarkable sculpture IN GODS WE TRUST by Miami based artist Caridad Sola Perez, is a free-standing installation and sculpture, and mixed media wall installation.

It features a bound book containing 19 sacred texts from 14 different religions, 22 kt gold leafed night table, and Darwin’s Origin of Species keeping the table level.

A single volume holds nineteen sacred scriptures from fourteen faith traditions, bound not in rivalry but in sequence — a chronological spine tracing humanity’s long and restless dialogue with the divine. Gilded in 22-karat gold, a night table stands in quiet reverence, its brilliance recalling both altar and treasury. Beneath it, almost mischievously, rests on The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, steadying the structure — evolution supporting revelation, science propping faith, doubt balancing devotion.

The drawer is shallow and firmly closed. There is no hiding this book away, no discreet concealment as in anonymous hotel rooms where belief is tucked beside a bed lamp and forgotten by morning. Here, scripture refuses exile. It insists on presence.

From the bound volume, pages spill outward and descend from above in a suspended cascade — as though language itself were in motion. Are these the words of God falling toward humanity, or the words of humanity rising in longing toward God? The direction is ambiguous; the yearning is not.

Originally installed in 2006, only two blocks from the site once known as World Trade Center, the drifting pages recall the ash and paper that once filled the sky when the towers fell on September 11, 2001 — fragments of lives, of systems, of certainties. In that memory, the work becomes elegy. Faith, like paper, can be weaponized or sanctified; it can build monuments or reduce them to dust.

And still, in a world fractured by doctrines that preach peace yet practice division, the scriptures lie bound together — not to erase difference, but to expose a shared pulse beneath them all. Down the street stands the New York Stock Exchange, temple of another kind of belief — in markets, in value, in invisible hands. Its proximity inspired the title In Gods We Trust, echoing the national motto debated on American currency: whether trust belongs to God, to gods, or to the economies that shape our days.

Gold leaf glimmers. Pages fall. Evolution steadies revelation.

The work does not choose a side. It holds them all in tension — asking whether what we worship divides us, or whether it has always been the same longing, spoken in many tongues. A decade later, in 2026, the gold has not dulled, but the questions have deepened.

Hosting more than 15,000 avid art enthusiasts, including 2,000+ trade representatives every year, Artexpo New York is the largest international gathering of qualified trade buyers—including gallery owners and managers, art dealers, interior designers, publishers, architects, corporate art buyers, and art and framing retailers. Attendees will have an opportunity to browse thousands of innovative new works of art and enjoy specific programming. Avid art enthusiasts and industry leaders will return to enjoy [SOLO], highlighting established and independent emerging artists. This year’s Artexpo New York will also feature its annual lineup of programming within the Artexpo Pavilion and [SOLO] Pavilion. The Opening Night VIP Preview for Artexpo New York takes place on Thursday, April 9 from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. The fair continues for the public and trade on Friday, April 10 through Sunday, April 12, starting at 11:00 a.m. daily, with tickets priced at $40 for general admission purchased at the door.