Again I didn't blame the artists, I mentioned the art director. Have a good day.
I'm aware that you have. If you read my post, you can see that blame assignment is not something I am concerned with.
My key point is that we don't have any real evidence yet for your claim re: "house style". Especially as this piece of art is quite typical of Billy Christian's recent work, rather than obviously confirmative to an art director's vision. Equally, if we take the inverse view and assume the art director isn't presenting a vision but simply picking artists already in line with one (as is quite common though both occur), I would respectfully submit that we simply don't have the evidence to support that claim at this stage.
As far as I know, all the 5E 2024 art we've seen so far is:
1) PHB cover dwarf fighter
2) Glowy McWizard here
3) Silver dragon ticker tape parade
4) Landscape art for four backgrounds
5) Tough Champion Fighter lady
The latter two seem here:
Take a Peek At the 2024 D&D Player's Handbook
Now if I have missed some definite 2024 art, I apologise and would be delighted if anyone could point me two it, but on that basis of these five pieces we're kind of seeing at least three, perhaps four distinct "styles". The dwarf puts me in mind of Easley's approach, actually. Glowy McWizard is this heroic figure of a different kind, more akin to say an exaggerated digital Clyde Caldwell. The solver dragon and landscapes have a similar style to each other which is nice if a little more generic and concept-art-ish - harder to pin down without higher quality images(can't view ATM). And the tough lady is pretty similar to the current D&D style with perhaps a little more grit.
So it's possible your theory may end up being correct, but we need more evidence.