Nat Meade, who we featured in our October 2017 issue of the magazine, is about to open a solo exhibition with Honey Ramka in NYC. Never Learn not to Cease to Exist will be artist's 1st showcase with the Brooklyn-based gallery and will showcase his latest explorations of archetypal male figures.
Through his recent body of work, Meade was focusing on questioning and reimagining the typical male figure and what it stands for. Going back to his childhood home where a woodcut of a bearded Walter Whitman was dominating his living space, he is nowadays trying to create a different appearance to such archetypal male figures. Repeatedly depicting them with big noses, thick beard, often smoking a cigarette, they regularly have their eyes closed and come across less self-aware, less monumental, and less anxious. Appearing content, relaxed or even dead, Meade's subjects are further blending with their lush, not-so-many surroundings. Often working on the same image multiple times, the artist likes to investigate how different color schemes, composition choices, or accidental interactions of those elements, can affect the final result. Layering oils or casein or linen or hemp canvas, the finished paintings are also beautifully textured which adds to his efforts to create work which is meant to be both aspirational and dumb, or specific and general, but also elevated and beatific, and at the same time buffoonish and absurd. —Sasha Bogojev
