Nic Rad

Can’t seem to exit the simulation. Painted Hulk for a fair in Miami with @dinner_gallery in 2016. Fresh off the Gawker killing Thiel funded lawfare, the steroid fueled Florida bleached Himbo was then flexing his cartoonish macho relevance through a more cold blooded American specter. At the time I tried to paint him thin, plastic, and fast. Tried to stick the distance between the subject and the object in some ambiguous honest personal friction. Wild to see Hogan last night cutting a promo for Trump in the same maniac triangulation of hero and heel that however shameful and perverted, to my 80s baby male gaze felt exactly, incriminatingly, inexcusably “American.”

Massive congrats to @wesgoodrich97 on his @tribeca film festival debut last night. I had the pleasure to work on this poster for Meal Ticket courtesy of super producer @pknichols44 . It was a joy to work with Wes on the concept for the poster before a frame of the movie had been shot. A luxury to think through it that way. His film is about a young performer on the precipice of breaking out and the complex pressures on the people supporting him. These days I spend most of my time lone wolfing it in front of heaving clunky inanimate wood sculptures— It was refreshing to step back into collaboration with such a sharp and visually insightful dude like Wes. To me a great poster is saturated with the spirit of the project in every pixel- it’s an extension of the story telling on screen boiled down to one punch. Proud of this one and lucky to have been a part of it. We made a ton of variations and tried a lot of things: here’s a carousel of some bits and bops along the way, back to the mock up of my skinny little spark of an idea. Shout out to @jry_designs for the great logo font and to the whole production team not to mention the great performances. 👏👏👏

loyal assistant loyally assisting . . . . #dogsofinstagram #contemporaryart #sculpture #painting #newyorkartist #artstudio #artwork

☠️⚡️dimes square x Taylor discourse⚡️☠️ . . . . . #paintings #taylorswift #mattyhealy #contemporaryart #sculpture #icespice

The painting part is the guts. The sculpture part is the bones. Patient on the table for months. I pretend it’s like that but you know, silly. A fun little game I play for months at a time. I make a little cut, a little dab, just some low stakes surgery. This one has been on the verge for months. It’s still a work in progress- sometimes flatlining, sometimes jolting upright. Hope he makes it! 🚑❤️‍🩹

hello world

I made a lot of this work In 2016 clicking hard, 40 tabs deep, pre-Trump, post Malone(?) 4 years later I can’t remember much of the physical making of them, just a vague sense that I did and a Dropbox full of evidence. I tried to make pictorial choices aggressive but listless - that frantic passivity that overtakes your brain when you’re Very Online. A lot of the materials were scrapped from the dumpster in the studio building where I worked in fort green across the hall from @maria_kozak who was always covered in paint and generous with good vibez. The building had tech companies, fabricators, fashion lines, unknowingly collaborating their trash into my frankensteins. As I worked on them the object assemblage picture things constantly whined and complained- needing more Something, less Warmth, more Red, less formal specificity, more motion, less hamfisted dumbboi energy, less Me, more of Anyone Else. Often they told me to Give up, and Go Away, which I would for weeks, sometimes months, and then one day they’d sweetly whisper, ‘I feel pretty’ and we’d sit together and I’d think I’d really done something. Sometimes I’d post them on social media to fish for external confirmation. You’re here too, so you know how that story goes... I’d be gently scratching away at some detail in the corner and the assemblage art-object picture thingy would start laughing “You’re really Shit, aren’t you!?” A day would come where I’d walk in full of bluster, turn them to the wall “Shut up you! You’re done!” I’d sign the back. With that bad ceremony, an ending. These aren’t portraits of healthy relationships, or confident states of mind. I like doubt in art. I like effort and struggle. I like vulnerable uncertainty and crash landings. Sometimes I wish it were different, my “process” (ew). I’ve heard of artists with clear headed intentions, true belief, rules for success. Haha- miss me with that you freaks? But that’s just like, my opinion man. Every image, object, art thing gets tired of itself, stops existing in the mind of the maker, has to seek new walls, new platforms, new eye balls, or else new storage units, new dumpsters to crawl back into. #victorimogallery

cool

Did some sketching for Rainy— song of the summer. Put it on loop, let the skies open up (@caseyjost / of the album Herb on Spotify)

❤️

cheesin