Gallery: 10 Female Artists We Have a Crush On

Few things are as sexy as creativity. The lovely ladies in this gallery all tickle our intellectual fancy. Each has also made a distinct mark on the art world. One subverts traditional craft to bomb the streets. Others paint remarkable images of fragile femininity. And, a few depict hot hookers and porn stars.

Regardless of subject, it is all smart stuff beloved by many and shown at galleries and museums around the world.

These are the 10 female artists we have a crush on.

Corey Helford Gallery

Korin Faught is a romantic. Her paintings share a timeless sense of beauty and place female figures in composed, elegant settings. She's influenced by Victorian art and seeks to capture values of chivalry while exposing perceptions of female fragility.

Voices of the Lake: New Works by Korin Faught opens on September 3, 2011, at Corey Helford Gallery.

Agata Olek

Pioneer of fabric street art, Polish-born Agata Oleksiak has drawn attention for boldly bombing the Wall Street Bull. Olek's refined her techniques as she's grown in stature, moving from the streets to garnering a Smithsonian commission for 2012.

Her most recent exhibition, The Bad Artists Imitate The Great Artists Steal, closed just last week. But, you can check our review here.

Tea Party Love

This Canadian cutie has developed an artistic alter-ego of sorts. Her solitary female figures express her own experiences and open private messages to the outside world. Her work finds life in Blik Wall Decals, an affordable way to include Joncas' world in your own home.

Joncas' Lilith exhibition at Last Rites Gallery in New York was met with rave reviews this past May.

Jaclyn Santos

Ms. Santos, a former assistant to Jeff Koons, explores themes of voyeurism and identity. She caught our attention as a contestant on the first season of Bravo's Work of Art. Her sexy self-portraits are equally eye catching.

Santos has shown in both New York and Los Angeles during 2011.

Hookedfeathers

Fabia is fascinated by "hookers." She paints sultry women with inspiration from punk rock and Japanese cartoons. She also plays in a band, Pelt, and has a line of jewelry, Hookedfeathers.

Needless to say, Natalia Fabia is pretty cool.

The Stagg Party

Photographer Ellen Stagg holds a BFA from the School of Visual Arts. Her career has focused on portraits of pretty ladies — often porn stars — and she's shot some of the most titillating campaigns in streetwear (yes, we love her work for Mishka). Her skate deck for Living Proof, featuring Justine Joli, was an instant collectable too.

In 2010, Stagg's "Melting Flesh" was mounted at Fuse Gallery, showing a sumptuous assortment of bodies. She also participated in group shows at Nixon Art Mosh in NYC and Brooklyn's Might Tanaka that same year.

Audrey Kawasaki

Audrey Kawasaki

Influenced by manga comics and Art Nouveau, Audrey Kawasaki's paintings are both innocent and erotic. Her women have a bit of "bedroom eye" about them, and we're just a bit smitten.

Kawasaki's most recent exhibition ran at Merry Karnowski Gallery in Los Angeles. She shows again this October at Thinkpace Gallery.

Tara McPherson

We like oddballs, but not as much as Tara McPherson does. She has made a career of creating art that celebrates strange behavior and making everything from awesome toys with Kid Robot to gig posters for bands like the Melvins. She's also worked with Dogfish Head Brewery.

Essentially, McPherson makes the world a better place. One artwork at a time.

Alex Prager

Born in Los Angles, photograph Alex Prager has shown all over her home town and as far away as China. She's also been featured at MoMA. And, her vintage inspired work depicts a fantasy world that subverts the perceived perfection of LA.

Alex's sister, Vanessa, is a pretty awesome painter. Art clearly runs in the family.

Deitch

Dallas-born Rosson Crow completed her MFA at Yale in 2006. She became, almost immediately, something of an art world star, included with the likes of Dash Snow and Ryan Trecartin in a Wall Street Journal article titled "The 23-Year Old Masters." Her star has continued to rise with solo shows at Honor Fraser, White Cube, Deitch, The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, and most recently at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinatti. There, Crow showed impressively, Rosson Crow: Myth of the American Motorcycle providing proper showcase for her historically driven painting.