5 Standout Artworks at Untitled Art, Houston

Kicking off the first edition of Untitled Art, Houston with 88 local, national, and international galleries, the boutique invitational fair partnered with the Austin-based firm Michael Hsu Office of Architecture to create a lively, maze-like booth layout for the George R. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston. Running from September 19–21, with a VIP opening on September 18, the fair featured special projects, prizes, live podcast panels, institutional presentations, and community partnerships.

Celebrated in Miami Beach for its innovative December art fair, now in its twelfth year, which runs alongside Art Basel Miami Beach,  Untitled Art chose Houston for its new destination because of its reputation as one of the nation’s top cultural centers.

“What we saw with this first edition was Houston fully asserting itself—not just as a regional player, but as a city with real global resonance,” Michael Slenske, Director of Untitled Art, Houston, shared with Galerie. “There was a palpable energy—across galleries, museums, independent spaces, and the artists themselves—that spoke to both the city’s deep cultural roots and its evolving international outlook. It’s not just about putting Houston on the map; it’s about acknowledging the fact that it’s always been here, quietly building something remarkable. We’re honored to be part of this moment and excited to grow with this vibrant, multifaceted community.”

With over 145 languages spoken, Houston is one of the country’s largest, most diverse, and fastest-growing cities, featuring a vibrant art scene, experienced collectors, major art institutions, well-known commercial galleries, respected art schools, and a large community of working artists.

Scroll through to explore a curated list of standout works by our favorite artists at the inaugural fair.

1. Miki Leal | El Apartamento

A multidisciplinary Spanish artist, Miki Leal is known for using irony, moving beyond traditional painting, and challenging cultural “isms.” Displayed in a three-person presentation at the gallery’s booth, Leal’s sophisticated paintings on paper drew inspiration from diverse cultural sources, including art, architecture, industrial design, cinema, and music—featuring works with visual references to Matisse, Picasso, Delacroix, Le Corbusier, Loewy, and Glenn Gould, while skillfully combining abstract elements with figuration. The largest artwork on view, which sold quickly, was the 2025 diptych En casa de Peggy (At Peggy’s House), a composite of images of Peggy Guggenheim’s Venetian home and art collection, depicting a dreamlike gathering of family and friends in an iconic setting.

2. Jane Yang-D’Haene | Mindy Solomon

Born in Korea and based in New York, ceramicist Jane Yang-D’Haene creates unique sculptural vessels shaped through a careful process of coil building, wheel throwing, and multi-firing surface treatments that add depth, texture, and surprising material reactions. Exhibiting a selection of her handmade, expressive pots alongside abstract paintings by New York artist Heather Rubenstein, the gallery created a visual dialogue between the two artists and their chosen mediums. Reflecting her Korean heritage and the experimental techniques she developed in the United States, D’Haene’s stoneware vessels reference traditional moon jars while diverging from their smooth white surfaces. Through a variety of glazes and techniques that add texture, movement, and tonal variation, she creates planetary shapes that expressively reflect the earth, where her clay, in its raw form, originated.

3. Paul Kremer | Library Street Collective

A self-taught artist, Paul Kremer worked as a graphic designer for MTV, PBS, National Geographic, and other prestigious clients for 20 years before shifting his focus to painting. Working with acrylics on canvas and paper, he begins each piece with a series of drawings to simplify everyday forms into basic shapes, which he then paints boldly with vibrant colors. Referencing modernist movements like Color Field Painting, Hard Edge Painting, and Minimalism with a fresh, playful twist, the Chicago-born, Houston-based artist—paired with whimsical representational paintings by Los Angeles-based artist Geoff McFetridge at the fair booth—creates striking artworks from the most modest means. The 2025 canvas, Waves 12, exemplifies his latest paintings. Featuring fluid acrylic stains, it vividly captures the rolling peaks and valleys of ocean waves.

4. Narsiso Martinez | Charlie James Gallery

Immigrating to the United States from Mexico at age 20, Narsiso Martinez attended a community adult school to earn his high school diploma while working at apple orchards in Washington State. Step by step, he earned his Associate of Arts degree, a BFA, and finally his MFA from California State University Long Beach in 2018. Over the past several years, Martinez has created drawings on cardboard produce packaging to commemorate the migrant experience and farm laborers, and his work has gained recognition. He became an overnight success with his 2020 solo show, “Superfresh”, at Los Angeles’ Charlie James Gallery, garnering a prestigious New York Times profile and the 2022 Frieze Impact Prize. One of several new socially impactful works by Martinez featured in the gallery’s three-person booth exhibition, Ultimate Fresh, offers a bold celebration of migrant workers through a highly inventive sculptural form.

5. Meg Cranston | Meliksetian | Briggs

A 1986 MFA graduate from the California Institute of the Arts and Chair of Fine Arts at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, Meg Cranston has a diverse artistic practice that includes painting, sculpture, performance, video, writing, and lecturing, along with curatorial projects. Widely collected, her work has been exhibited internationally since 1988 and was featured in the groundbreaking “Helter Skelter” show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in 1992, as well as the 1993 Venice Biennale. Showing work with Meliksetian | Briggs in Dallas and Los Angeles since 2015, Cranston displayed several abstract paintings from her recent “Organizing Principles” series, exploring the connection between social, political, and industrial organization and the organizing principles in art. The large-scale canvas that caught our eye was Everybody Must Get Stoned from 2024, depicting objects falling from the sky, as they might amusingly appear on a horizontal TV or computer screen.