Nathaniel Galka: "rebellious nature...": New York

Leila Heller Gallery is pleased to announce classical-contemporary artist Nathaniel Aric Galka's solo spring exhibition titled "rebellious nature..." in New York City from February 22nd to April 21st, 2022. 

Nathaniel Aric Galka's paintings are exquisitely executed mystical depictions of his love for history and nature. His works are constructed in the Renaissance technique with personally made marble plaster gesso and applied to jute or linen wrapped panels. His elegant oil paintings, with the addition of contemporary spray enamel and shellac India ink applied with dipped pen, reference everything from East Asian woodblock prints from centuries ago to contemporary master paintings of today. The intricate designs are immersed with a multitude of art references with a predominant focus on Rococo and Neo-Romanticism. His current paintings have been heavily compared to the 18th-century French painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard.

Nathaniel Aric Galka’s graceful and uplifting exhibition "rebellious nature..." points to the need for a greater connection to natural and spiritual intuitiveness. Through his paintings, we must reflect and accept our self-inflicted loss of nature and reconnect to our spiritual self. Galka exclaims, "I focus on works being beautiful and use a more subversive means to discuss the politics of how we are treating this planet. My work communicates that the flora and fauna of this earth will recover and be at its wondrous apex after we are long gone and will re-balance in harmony with only a residue of our existence left behind" Undoubtedly, it is the 17th-century elitist "vanitas" still-life paintings of the Netherlands plus French/ Russian aristocratic “Chinoiserie” decorative arts that show an idealized interpretation of nature in their culture. Galka’s highest emotional and historical connection to a particular time in art is a century later. With the beginning of the 19th century, the period is known as “Romanticism” is characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as the glorification of a simpler past immersed in bucolic nature. The Neo-Romanticism within his work exhibits a desirous wish for a Utopian connection to nature uncoupled from social constructs.

Galka also directly relates to the “Aesthetic Movement” started in the mid 1800’s in England. The movement emphasized more the sensual values rather than socio-political ideas or themes which our current culture is obsessed with. His intense fascination with the “Aesthetic Movement” is because it challenged the values of mainstream culture by referencing beauty of the natural world (nature over machine). That is why he is on the forefront of what he considers to be the rebirth of the “Neo-Aesthetic” movement. Galka explains “Nature, beauty, and empathy in this world is where I find complete happiness. I have an exquisite love affair with nature; that is what sustains true happiness in my life”.

ABOUT NATHANIEL ARIC GALKA 
Galka explains with paint what we, as a civilization, are doing to ourselves and our planet. We are directly changing our connection to Mother Nature and spirit simply for vanity’s sake. He shows through his serene paintings that one of the ways we speak as a culture is within the aesthetic language of beauty.  Beauty, as it is, speaks to a greater consciousness-a universal language. Galka says “There is a place and time for escaping reality and a time to be brave and see what is real”. Art when beautiful, sustains time and allows its viewers less resistance to see what an artist like Nathaniel Aric Galka is aiming to convey.  He is cutting a clear path looking inward and striving to emphasize his inspiration, subjectivity, and primacy of the individual self within the world’s chaotic reality.