Not Done Star Spotting? Here Are 5 Exciting Artists at the Los Angeles Fairs Whose Careers Are About to Take Off
Hubert Neal Jr. with his series “Black and Blue” presented by Los Angeles’s IV Gallery at Spring / Break Los Angeles 2022. Photo by Sarah Cascone.
by Mohd Kamran February 22, 2022
Who: As an African American, Hubert Neal Jr. was acutely aware from childhood of the police brutality perpetrated against the Black community. Neal knew he was going to be an artist from the age of nine, but he also realized that addressing the issue of racially-based violence in his work might be a hard sell for some audiences. So in college, he began painting simplistic, cartoon-like figures in bold colors, drawing from influences including Romare Bearden collages, Keith Haring, and Ethiopian art. “I recognized even then that people turn away when it’s too realistic, so I was going to have to come up with my own style to tell ugly stories,” he told Artnet News.
Based in: Chicago
Showing at: IV Gallery, Los Angeles, at Spring / Break Art Show
Prices: $ 6,000 to $ 9,000
Why You Should Pay Attention: The bold colors and punchy line work of Neal’s paintings immediately draw you in. But then it hits you that his grinning blue figures are sadistic cops, brutally attacking Black men and women whose names have been taken from the headlines. The realization comes almost like a physical blow itself, and a powerful mental reminder of the horrible reality of the deaths of men and women like George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, and too many others. The work is effective, both visually and emotionally.
Notable Resume Line: The artist was included at the 2012 group show “Caribbean: Crossroads of the World” at the Queens Museum of Art and El Museo del Barrio in New York, and a 2018 group show at 21c Museum Hotel, Bentonville, Arkansas.
Up Next: Neal will have his second show at IV Gallery of works from the “Black and Blue” series.
—Sarah Cascone
