Oh boy, don't get me started. Here are a few artists I like that I feel are doing well for themselves but you'd miss them if you weren't super into contemporary art.

Janet Cardiff and George Bures-Miller

Okay, so you might know these two , but if not, seriously, the last time I was outright blown away by art (jaw hanging open, absolutely speechless) was when I saw their show. All their works are interactive so anything I say here will do them no justice, but let me explain my favourite Storm Room. You walk up a ramp into what looks like a box large box made of plywood. When you get inside however, the inside is modelled like the inside of a rural Japanese dentists office. There are windows and rain pours down outside the room (yes real water). Water leaks from the ceiling into buckets. The thunder and lighting make huge sounds when they go off. The room is so small abandoned you feel insecure in this raggedy place. You know the storm isn't real but damn, you still feel scared, like the roof won't hold. And all this is within a gallery. Seriously check them out.

Micah Lexier

This guy is just plain fun. He recently won the Governor General's award for the Arts in Canada and damn did he deserve it. Most his works takes humorous views about time and capturing single moments. The thing I like most about his work is that everything is super is very carefully made and planned, keeping only the most important information to communicate an idea, and yet each of these minimalist works is based on some chaotic process. In the following A Minute of my Time, December 7, 1998, (22:02-22:03) he used a watterjet to cut a massive steel plate in the exact formation of a line he impulsively drew. The line is messy and chaotic, but the steel is fixed, imposing and solid. Its a great dichotomy.

Ken Matsubara

Last one I swear. This guy is a super cool Japanese artist with each work giving you that sense of wonder back. All his works appear to be simple sculptures, but upon a closer inspection, you see that each one has a video hiding on it somewhere, often of water. All about memories and connection with the past and the inherent connection of man to nature. I don't really want to write any more, so I'll just leave these here.

http://kenmatsubara.com/WORKS/Storm.mp4

http://kenmatsubara.com/WORKS/Paper1s.mp4

other things I like atm

Basquiat, Nam June Paik, Jenny Saville, Irving Penn, Xiao Guo Hui, Matthew Barney, Robert Gober, Anslem Kiefer, David Altmejd, Cecily Brown, Charles Ray, Yoko Ono