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New Art Examiner: Figure of a Gentle Gay Manifesto: “Undercurrents”
Michel Ségard’s New Art Examiner review explores Undercurrents, Nathan Brad Hall’s exhibition at Gallery Victor, as a quietly powerful statement on identity, beauty, and emotional truth. Blending classical technique with contemporary realism, Hall’s male figures affirm queer experience not through provocation, but through tenderness and humanity.
By Michel Ségard
Throughout history, figuration in art has almost always been the carrier of a message—religious, political, or social—beyond the immediate appreciation of the human form. This dual content is what makes studying the depiction of the human figure so interesting, even in our post-modern era. Gallery Victor is known for showing figurative works that have roots in historical realism yet have a contemporary punch. This exhibition of works by Nathan Brad Hall is a prime example. Hall uses all the techniques of realism developed during and since the Renaissance-particularly chiaroscuro, the careful shading of skin to achieve precise modeling or the meticulous rendering of hair. But he mixes these techniques with subtle areas of impasto—to him, a nod to expressionism—to call attention to certain parts of a painting. The results are a series of large dramatic images of nude male figures that speak to much more than the beauty of the male body.
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