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WES HEMPEL
In Wes Hempel’s latest show of paintings at George Billis Gallery, the artist moves from his imagery of neo-classical and staged historical allusion to one of his own past, that of growing up in Los Angeles, where the Pacific Ocean and its diversions were a constant presence. In these new paintings, Hempel depicts his usual fit, athletic and almost idealized male nudes not in imaginary Arcadian prospects but in the everyday though iconic landscape of the beaches of southern California. These small, rather intimate paintings illustrate slices of California beach life in which, in all but two, a single male figure is frozen in painterly time. As with Jean-Hippolyte Flandrin’s famous Study, Young Male Nude Seated beside the Sea, in most of these paintings (Hidden Cove, Hot Afternoon), the solitary figure looks away from the viewer – is it shyness? Modesty? A desire not to be categorized? Viewers will decide for themselves.
In some of these new paintings, there is an intimation of movement – from a seagull, from an airship, from foaming waves, or a mere ripple in the water – contrasting with the almost eerie stillness of the male figure, both clothed and nude. And even when the figures are in motion, as in Riding Home and Last Basket, they seem suspended in front of gloriously animated sunsets.
In this latest work, Hempel celebrates the wonder of being young, magnificently free as yet of the baggage, both good and bad, that comes with age. All is possibility. All is still Arcadia, but not an allegorical facsimile, but a real one on the beaches of Santa Monica and Marina del Rey.
Wes Hempel’s work is in the permanent collection of the Denver Art Museum and the New Britain Museum of American Art, among other public and corporate collections. Hempel also appears in David Leddick’s The Nude Male: 21st Century Visions, published in 2008 by Universe Publishing/Rizzoli.
by Ned Davies, 2023
In some of these new paintings, there is an intimation of movement – from a seagull, from an airship, from foaming waves, or a mere ripple in the water – contrasting with the almost eerie stillness of the male figure, both clothed and nude. And even when the figures are in motion, as in Riding Home and Last Basket, they seem suspended in front of gloriously animated sunsets.
In this latest work, Hempel celebrates the wonder of being young, magnificently free as yet of the baggage, both good and bad, that comes with age. All is possibility. All is still Arcadia, but not an allegorical facsimile, but a real one on the beaches of Santa Monica and Marina del Rey.
Wes Hempel’s work is in the permanent collection of the Denver Art Museum and the New Britain Museum of American Art, among other public and corporate collections. Hempel also appears in David Leddick’s The Nude Male: 21st Century Visions, published in 2008 by Universe Publishing/Rizzoli.
by Ned Davies, 2023
