Queer Art Now report, Artsy official website, 2025
Nan Ke Gallery is proud to announce that our represented artist, Killion Huang, has been selected for the “Artsy Queer Art Now” artist list. His work will be featured on billboards across New York City throughout the month of June, showcasing his creative energy and diverse perspective to the public.Queer Art Now is Artsy’s Pride Month 2025 celebration spotlighting 30 LGBTQ+ artists meeting the moment and shaping the future of contemporary art. Nominated by leading figures across the art world—including curator and author Legacy Russell, photographer Catherine Opie, and art advisor Racquel Chevremont—these artists reflect the diversity and dynamism of queer creative expression today.
Queer Art Now, Billboards in NYC, June, 2025.
The featured cohort includes painters, photographers, performers, and sculptors showcasing the breadth of queer experience through their radical, boundary-pushing work. In tandem with this list, Artsy also invited curator and author Gemma Rolls-Bentley to reflect on some of the major themes she observes in queer art today.
Installation view of In Case I Don't See You, June 14, 2025 - July 27, 2025, Nan Ke Gallery, Shanghai ©Courtesy of Nan Ke Gallery, Photographed by Runxin.
Killion Huang renders moments of solitude and connection in dimly lit interiors where figures linger in reflective, intimate scenes. Born in Hangzhou, China, and trained at the School of Visual Arts in New York, the 25-year-old artist draws on personal experience to create emotionally charged portraits that explore identity, longing, and connection across cultural contexts. In much of Huang’s work, queerness is neither dramatized nor hidden—it simply is. The quiet assertion in his paintings reflects his upbringing in a conservative environment, where, as he described in an interview with EDJI Gallery during his solo show, “Reflections,” queerness was “a discreet thing and unspeakable.” Painting became a way to challenge that silence. “I portray queerness and peaceful love in an ordinary way: personal but not so discreet,” he said. These lyrical, restrained paintings often depict figures in states of quiet pause—sitting on beds, gazing through windows, or staring into mirrors. Their gestures of vulnerability quietly affirm queer presence.
—Maxwell Rabb
June 22, 2025
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