Juxtapoz Journal – Preview: Nat Meade’s “Tomorrow, the Flood” Opening at M+B Gallery, Los Angeles


Subsequent week, M+B will open Tomorrow, the Flood, an exhibition of latest works by Nat Meade. In Tomorrow, the Flood, Nat Meade provides an intimate and poignant reimagining of masculinity, fatherhood, and human connection, pushing exploration of male archetypes to new depths. The work are a synthesis of existential nervousness and tender vulnerability that gestures towards the fragility of human bonds.

Meade’s figures—stoic but deeply human—are caught in moments of reflection and care, typically absurd, usually poignant. Balsa, positions a father as a type of life-support system for a kid. The figures’ entanglement—each literal and emotional—reads as a meditation on reciprocity in caregiving, upending conventional notions of patriarchal authority. Meade borrows from the pathos of classical iconography however reframes it by his personal modern lens, suggesting the precariousness of each generational and ecological inheritance.

This fragility is central to Seedling, the place a bearded determine reclines, legs splayed, as a fragile flower emerges from the bottom beneath him. Meade’s humor subtly balances the load of his themes: a meditation on legacy and an acknowledgment of the awkwardness of forging that means in a chaotic world. 

The greens and blues in items like Leviathan evoke the feeling of water and rising tides, talking on to the present’s titular “flood”—an ambiguous image of disaster, transformation, and renewal. These aqueous environments, coupled with Meade’s virtually sculptural kinds, permit the work to drift between historic references and timelessness.

The built-up portray surfaces are a testomony to Meade’s meticulous course of, which includes months—and in some instances over a yr—of layering paint, scraping it down, and making small changes over time. This methodical strategy imbues the work with a tangible depth, enhancing the load and presence of the figures and their environments.

Meade attracts inspiration from depictions of familial intimacy in artwork historical past, from the tender portrayals of moms and youngsters by Paula Modersohn-Becker to Henry Ossawa Tanner’s The Banjo Lesson. His figures oscillate between humor and anguish, between the load of custom and the craving for connection, bringing a vulnerability to fatherhood and masculinity that rejects the violence and stoicism usually embedded in its archetypes.

In Bedroll, the artist’s exploration of those themes comes full circle. Two figures, swaddled in blankets, lie aspect by aspect round a campfire. Their faces are obscured, save for glimpses of vulnerability—a hand poking out right here, a smooth curl of hair there. The picture captures the unusual, fleeting intimacy of shared silence, maybe alluding to the load of the unstated in familial bonds.

Tomorrow, the Flood feels as if it’s each reaching back and forth—into the load of inherited trauma and the unknowns of the longer term.  It’s no shock that Meade, himself a father, displays on the anxieties of making ready kids for an unsure world. Amid fears of rising waters—each literal and metaphorical—his figures persist, fumbling towards connection, intimacy, and the hope of one thing higher.



Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *