Tara Keny: Vulnerable Beauty in Summer Light at “Sweet Heat” Exhibition

Justin Natividad‘s latest exhibition, “Sweet Heat,” featured at Art Spiel by Tara Keny, focused the interplay of light and shadow on the male form. Through carefully cropped studies, Natividad captures the essence of summer’s golden hours, highlighting the delicate and vulnerable corners of the body.

Works like “Match Point,” inspired by Luca Guadagnino’s film “The Challengers,” exude a white-pink heat that resonates from the canvas. Natividad’s subjects, often devoid of eyes, faces, or limbs, focus on the beauty of intimate crevices, reminiscent of how Greek and Roman sculptures are experienced today.

Negative space and saturated yellows infuse a sense of nostalgia, evoking fleeting summer memories. Natividad’s “Sweet Heat,” the exhibition’s centerpiece, portrays a man in reflective goggles, his identity obscured yet archetypal of summer.

Natividad’s work, inspired by his time in Italy and the 1960s beach culture, invites viewers to experience the romanticism of summer through a nostalgic lens. 

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