Press
Undercurrents: Gallery Victor
Gallery Victor presents Undercurrents, a powerful exhibition of Nathan Brad Hall’s large-scale figurative paintings exploring the emotional energy beneath the surface of human experience. Known for dramatic lighting and expressive brushwork, Hall captures both intensity and vulnerability, blending realism and expressionism to reveal the charged stillness of the human form.
Nathan Brad Hall's work comes together in this show to build an undeniably jaw dropping experience for viewers. “Undercurrents,” says Hall, “is about trying to find a way to capture the underlying layers of emotion and have that emotion resonate outwards. It’s the hum of electricity just below the surface, pulsing and cracking that influences the way we move about in the world.” Based in New York and known for his large-scale figure paintings, Hall’s work offers glimpses into the intensity and vulnerability of being human. He says, "working at a sizable scale allows the viewer to become enveloped in the figure's deep humanity."
Hall's monumentally scaled work is defined by his use of dramatic lighting. In each work, he illuminates specific areas of the figure and their surroundings as the rest fades away into deep shadows. While his work displays Hall's knowledge and technique with realism painting, bits and pieces of texture pop out throughout the body of work. Highlights of selectively placed thick paint marks bring his work to a whole new level of depth. The selective marks reward viewers as they view the work up close, until they fade into the image from afar. Hall states, "Using both expressive and refined brush strokes of various thickness, my work uses the physical nature of oil paint to explore the balance of energy and stillness that can make the human figure come alive."
Nathan Brad Hall lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. With a background in both abstract and figurative studies, his focus today is on figurative oil painting, attempting to capture the light that illuminates us all. He has shown his work extensively in group and solo exhibitions in NYC and beyond and can be found in private collections across the U.S. and internationally.
Gallery Victor Artist Page (with Undercurrents Preview Book)
Gold Dust: Zillman Art Museum
The Zillman Art Museum introduces Gold Dust, a solo exhibition highlighting new large-scale paintings by New York–based artist Nathan Brad Hall. Renowned for his luminous realism, Hall reveals the tension between light and darkness, intimacy and distance. His richly textured surfaces and commanding figures invite viewers into quiet moments of vulnerability and human connection.
Gold Dust features a series of recent works by New York City-based artist Nathan Brad Hall. The artist is known for his realistically rendered portraits and figures. The majority of the paintings and drawings were created in 2022 and 2023 and are being exhibited for the first time in this solo-exhibition. Hall’s on-going preference for painting large canvases is demonstrated in Gold Dust, with the largest composition, King, spanning 80 x 120 inches. Hall states that he wishes to offer “glimpses into the intensity and vulnerability of being human. Working at a sizable scale allows the viewer to be enveloped in the figure’s deep humanity”.
Hall’s use of strong directional light is a hallmark of his paintings as his subjects seem to emerge from darkened environments. For instance, in the recent 2022 large-scale portrait, Wait for Me, the facial features of his red-haired subject are partially obscured in shadow. Hall states, “This interplay of light and shadow, paired with the complexity and illusion of color, drives me to capture these temporal moments with the fluidity of paint”. When the painter’s intense light source rakes over his subjects, the results are dramatic. In Kingdom Come, a shard of diagonal light illuminates the hair and forehead of his handsome sitter, while the remaining facial features, neck, and tattered t-shirt are shrouded within the shadow.