Call it the Hamilton effect. Over the last several years, artists of all stripes have been fascinated with the idea of reimagining historical events and cultural mythologies with black and brown bodies. From Netflix's Bridgerton to Kehinde Wiley's portraiture, it's a clever tactic that attracts diverse audiences to the work while giving artists the space to put modern life in conversation with traditional notions of power and prominence. It's no surprise, then, that at Frieze New York 2023 – the art fair that many see as the pulse of contemporary art internationally – a new generation of creators cope with the complexities of today by drawing on the aesthetics of the past. Here’s our choice of three standout artists taking this aesthetic debate forward.

Lauren Halsey

Los Angeles native Lauren Halsey has quickly made a name for herself in the art world by expertly combining the visual culture of the city's South Central neighborhood and her architectural training to develop a body of work that feels like walking through an NWA video and an Egyptian tomb simultaneously. Putting cultural histories that seem so at odds with each other is precisely the point. To her, finger waves and box braids are as noble a crown as an atef.

Her largescale reliefs trade hieroglyphics and scenes of court life for the commercial advertisements that dot the rapidly gentrifying urban landscape she grew up in, like the uplifting ‘Yes, We’re a Black Owned Business’ and the more predatory ‘We Buy Houses’. The curation made possible by David Kordansky Gallery underscores the artist's reputation for being “obsessive.” Mixing wood carvings, tapestries made of synthetic hair, broken CDs and photography, the obsession isn’t just about representing the black individuals she grew up around properly, it's about preserving their vernacular, fashion and resilience with an archaeological level of care.

Naudline Pierre

Hell hath no fury like Naudline Pierre’s brush. The daughter of a Haitian minister, the artist's most vibrant pieces are jewel-toned hellscapes that instantly bring to mind flattened Renaissance depictions of the realm of suffering. In the Western art tradition, hell is depicted as the stuff of nightmares, an inescapable destination where lousy behavior is published; monsters run amok, and at times, bodies are boiled and broken unceremoniously – think Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights or Michelangelo's The Last Judgment. In Pierre's work, hell is seen as almost euphoric.

In The Only Way Out Is In (2023), a naked dark brown body is surrounded by celestial beings whose expressions range from menacing to concerned as part of the figure passes through a dark portal. In Resolute (2023), a dark, winged figure with full lips and dyed hair looks slightly past the viewer as they perch beside stenciled flames, ready to fly. For the artist, whose work showed with James Cohan Gallery, the fiery pits aren't a dark end, they’re where black bodies, particularly female ones, can find new beginnings.

"My hope is that people can enter my work and experience the freedom and thrill that the unknown brings,” Pierre says. “Black people exist, have existed, and will continue to exist in this world and the worlds beyond. We are generators of unimaginable beauty. I can’t change art history but I can reframe it to include my unique perspective."

Castiel Vitorino Brasileiro

The black bodies under the most scrutiny in modern society are those of black trans women, whose experiences fuel intense political debate as murder rates climb. Brazilian multidisciplinary artist Castiel Vitorino Brasileiro confronts the issue head-on using photography and installation that often centre raw depictions of her own body. Weaving in critiques of racial and colonial history, her portfolio includes scenes of her genitals up close, naked poses in nature, recreations of African spiritual practices, and visits to sites where enslaved Brazilians found peace. In the large photograph that drew a crowd at Frieze, Parto Natural (2023), the artist kneels under a spotlight in a dark wooded area baring her breasts and raising two cloth-covered fists in the air – eerily reminiscent of the tribal portraits you’d find in old issues of National Geographic.

According to gallery representatives at Mendes Wood DM, the artist, who studied psychology, decided art was the best method for communicating the true complexities of the black trans experience. “Even though daily my body continues being replaced in genre mythology, in Transsexuality mythology, or in Travestiliaty Mythology – even so, I continue affirming: this is not my story... The modification of my body is not a matter of gender, but a factor of my hybrid animality of sky and ocean. What changes is me. My substance. And the ways that I relate to my truth,” reads an artist statement.

For Brasileiro, history books and psych volumes didn’t capture what she knew to be true of the experience she often refers to as “flesh transmutation.” By forcing viewers to look at her changing body outside of colonial boundaries she makes it possible for them, and herself, to heal the open wounds that bind all marginalised people.