Collision II; the Void 2021

Aaron Nagel made Collision II; the Void, with paint, I assume, sometime after 1980. Immediately, I'm struck by the rendering, that sense of realness in painting. Nagel seems to have approached the canvas almost like a photograph in reverse, building up an image from dark to light. The physical qualities of this piece hit you first: the deep blues and blacks, mixed with these pops of red, give it a dramatic, almost theatrical feel. There’s a tension here, between the folds of the material and the way the light catches it, making it seem both heavy and weightless, still and somehow in motion. I keep thinking about the upper left-hand corner, where the fabric seems to curve into the frame. It's a microcosm of the whole piece. I see echoes of the Dutch Masters in Nagel's work, maybe someone like Johannes Vermeer, but with an added contemporary twist. Art's all about conversation, right? Each artist building on what came before, mixing it up, and making something new.