Most people don’t buy art because they don’t trust their taste yet. You know when something pulls them in, but turning that instinct into an understanding if they can live with that piece, and an actual purchase, can still feel intimidating.
That’s where we both come in, from two different angles.
Elena Mostovova is a collector in the making who recently acquired her first large-scale work. She shares her journey on Art for Breakfast and Instagram, documenting the process of becoming a collector from the inside. She explores both the what: how taste is shaped through studio visits, conversations with artists and gallerists, and learning what she is truly drawn to live with. And the how: the questions, decisions, and negotiations that come with it - from pricing and navigating galleries and art fairs to understanding what to ask, what to read, and everything that often feels unclear at the beginning.
Anar Joshi is building LOTA, an art advisory practice rooted in the belief that taste is something you develop. She spends a lot of time looking closely - in studios, in conversations with artists and gallerists, and in the research that helps connect what moves you emotionally with what might actually make sense to buy and live with. A big part of her work is making the art world feel less opaque and helping people build confidence in their eye.
Different paths, same goal: helping our readers feel ready to purchase the first piece and bring art home.
So we each picked three artists we genuinely are drawn to - three from LA and three from Berlin. Six artists we think are worth knowing if you want to start building a collection with feeling, curiosity, and conviction.
Berlin
Berlin has a very specific energy. It’s not polished. But it gives artists space to experiment, and you can feel that in the work. It is also a top 3 city with the amount of galleries after New York and London.
When I choose artists, it’s never just about the visual. It’s very much about what connects me with the artist’s story, and whether I can actually imagine making it part of my life, where it will stimulate me intellectually or emotionally every time I see it.
Jorinde Voigt
If you want something intellectually stimulating
The first time I saw her work, I didn’t fully understand it.
Her works often begin with something invisible: emotions, memory, movement, or even sound. She translates these into visual systems of lines, structures, and compositions that feel incredibly precise, yet still deeply human.
What I find especially compelling is her analytical approach. Voigt treats her subjects as dynamic systems, bringing together perception, relationships, and even scientific or philosophical ideas into one visual language.
Her works often begin with something invisible: emotions, memory, movement, or even sound. She translates these into visual systems of lines, structures, and compositions that feel incredibly precise, yet still deeply human.
What I find especially compelling is her analytical approach. Voigt treats her subjects as dynamic systems — constantly shifting — bringing together perception, relationships, and even scientific or philosophical ideas into one visual language.
That connection to music feels very Berlin to me. The city has a deep relationship with sound and experimentation.
Collector note:
Style: Known for large-scale drawings and works on paper
Price: Works on paper can be a more accessible entry point: mid scale editions from 2.500-6.000€
Context: Strong institutional and international presence, professor in University of Art Hamburg
Where to find: Jorinde Voigt Website - List of representing galleries
Johanna Dumet
If you want something easy to live with
Her work is the opposite kind of entry point. You don’t need time to understand it.
You just respond to it emotionally.
Bright colours, expressive compositions, a balance between abstraction and figuration that feels intuitive and easy to live with, while still holding a story.
It’s also the kind of art that changes a room immediately. And that’s something I think is underrated when you’re starting to buy art. Not just what you like, but how it actually lives with you and shapes the mood of your space.
If you’re buying your first piece, this kind of work can make it easier to trust yourself. You don’t overthink it. You know quite quickly if you want to live with it.
I also really like that her practice starts to expand beyond canvas. Her hand-painted plates, for example, make her work feel more approachable and connected to everyday life.
Collector note:
Style: Works across figurative painting and functional objects
Price: Different formats offer accessible entry points: unique mid scale works around 6.000€
Context: Represented by renowned König Gallery Berlin
Where to find: König Gallery
I also absolutely loved Johanna’s last solo-exhibition with König, read more here.
André Butzer
If you want something that bridges Europe and the US
Butzer is one of the more established painters working out of Berlin today, with his studio in Wannsee, a place that has long attracted artists looking for space and focus just outside the intensity of the city.
His style is often described as science fiction expressionism. Strong colours, simplified, almost cartoonish figures, and an energy that fuses European expressionist painting with American pop culture.
At first glance, it can feel playful, even Disney-like. But it’s more than that: the vibrancy and immediacy of the work are deliberate choices, developed over decades as he explored how to combine narrative, emotion, and visual impact.
Butzer often paints wet-on-wet, layering brushstrokes quickly while the paint is still drying. This technique gives his figures that bold, slightly exaggerated, and alive quality. It’s part of why his paintings are so instantly recognisable and why they resonate both in Berlin and internationally.
For collectors outside of Germany, this kind of work travels well. It carries a strong visual identity, but also a clear connection back to Berlin. It’s also a way into collecting an artist who is already internationally recognised, while still finding entry points through works on paper or smaller formats.
Collector note:
Style: Known for expressive, colour-driven paintings and works on paper
Price: Works on paper offers accessible entry points: small and mid scale editions 3.000-5.000€
Context: Distinct and recognizable painterly language developed over three decades, widely regarded as one of the leading painters of his generation, strong institutional presence and established international collector base
Where to find: Gallery Max Hetzler
LA
By Anar Joshi
LA has its own kind of art energy. It may not have the institutional weight or auction-house gravity of New York or London, but it has something else: artists building serious practices, collectors learning in public, and a city full of people still trying to make culture on their own terms.
That doesn’t mean the work finds you easily. In LA, you do have to look. But if you’re willing to search a little, somewhere between the strip malls, the sprawl, and the traffic, there is incredible work here.
These are three local artists I’d start with.
Iris Yirei Hu
If you want layered art rooted in craftsmanship
IIris Yirei Hu is a Taiwanese Hakka American artist whose practice moves across painting, weaving, natural dye, porcelain, and textile. What makes the work feel so grounded is that it doesn’t just borrow from tradition aesthetically. She has actually learned from the people and communities connected to those materials and processes, and you can feel that depth in the work. She studied Navajo weaving with Melissa Cody. She traveled to villages in southwest China and Mexico to learn natural-indigo dyeing from the women still doing it. She has collaborated with Tongva elders Julia Bogany and the late Megan Dorame on site-specific work in Los Angeles.
In 2022 she was commissioned by LA Metro to create a permanent mosaic for the new UCLA/Westwood Purple Line station — nineteen California native plant species, native animals, the ecological story of Southern California — set to unveil in time for the 2028 Olympics. She calls it her love letter to the city.
She’s just had her debut group show at Luis De Jesus, and the gallery has brought her to both Felix LA and Dallas Art Fair.
Collector note:
Style: symbolic, textile-rooted, materially rich
Price: available linen works currently $6,500
Context: LA Metro public commission; strong institutional support including Headlands and Kohler Arts/Industry
Where to Find: Luis De Jesus Los Angeles
Kevin Yaun
If you want to bring the outside in, but don’t want a basic landscape
Kevin Yaun is a painter whose work is shaped by a life lived across multiple countries. He has lived in eight places in twenty years — Georgia, Colorado, the Netherlands, England, Thailand, Singapore, California — and the constant relocation made home an idea he had to chase rather than inherit. The paintings are what came out of that chase: hillside houses seen through hedges, Pacific coastlines glimpsed through sliding glass, single houseplants on windowsills with the entire LA sky reflected back.
Collector note:
Style: atmospheric painting; architecture, landscape, mood
Price: primary oils previously $3,200–$5,800
Context: Megan Mulrooney representation; Felix and Aspen visibility; work in institutional collections
Where to Find: Megan Mulrooney Gallery
Nicole Anastas
If you want something that adds texture to your walls
Nicole Anastas is the kind of artist whose path makes the work more interesting, not less. She studied textiles, worked in display and decorative painting, painted murals and furniture, raised a family, and came into this body of work later. You can feel all of that accumulated hand knowledge in the pieces.
Her surfaces are torn, stitched, rebuilt, and painted, and what I love is that the process never overwhelms the result. The work still feels clear, composed, and livable. The softer palettes are especially strong because they let the texture do the heavy lifting.
She’s also a good example of an artist who gives you a real entry point into a bigger conversation. The broader return to textile, handwork, and so-called craft in contemporary art is very real, but much of that market is already expensive or institutionally locked up. Anastas lets you participate in that conversation at a level that still feels possible. It’s also one of the more interesting ways to bring texture onto your walls without defaulting to something purely decorative.
Collector note:
Style: tactile abstraction; painting + textile crossover
Price: available work currently roughly $1,700–$9,000
Context: Uprise Art representation; MacArthur Place residency; installation at Modern Citizen NYC
Where to Find: Uprise Art and Tacit Collective
Each of the presented artists offers something that’s both approachable and aspirational, works you can live with, and stories you can carry with you.
We hope this gives you a sense of how your own collector’s story could start, whether in Berlin, LA, or anywhere in the world, and encourages you to take that first step.
I love the idea of a primer on art collecting. Seeing these artists, their works, and learning about their process is really inspiring me to continue building my collection.