The Pale 2012

Aaron Nagel painted The Pale sometime after 1980, and it feels so contemporary and somehow ancient. He’s built up these luminous bodies with layers of smooth, creamy oil paint. You can almost feel the warmth radiating from their skin, like a Caravaggio. I wonder if Nagel was thinking about the Old Masters and the way they used light and shadow to create such drama? His contemporary spin is the use of these strange, black gloves. It makes me think about this conversation that painters are having with each other across time, inspiring each other’s creativity. One artist will make a mark, and another will see it and respond, and so on. There is a sense of ambiguity here: we are invited to engage with the artwork in our own way. It allows for multiple interpretations.