Nathan Paddison Reel Is Tick Pet Portrait For Sale

About this work

Nathan Paddison's "Reel Is Tick Pet Portrait" exemplifies the artist's singular approach to figuration, where recognizable forms emerge from and dissolve back into fields of gestural energy. The substantial canvas presents what might be understood as a portrait subject—perhaps canine, perhaps something more ambiguous—rendered through Paddison's characteristic layering of oil stick, matte vinyl acrylic spray paint, charcoal, and pencil. These varied media create a richly textured surface where passages of deliberate mark-making collide with areas of spontaneous accumulation, building a visual archaeology of the artist's process. The title itself plays with language, its phonetic puzzle suggesting "realistic" while simultaneously undermining any straightforward reading of representation. This tension between the recognizable and the abstracted defines the work's emotional register: tender yet unsettling, familiar yet strange. Paddison captures something essential about how we perceive beloved animals—not as fixed images but as felt presences, known through accumulated moments of connection rather than photographic precision. Within Paddison's broader practice, this piece demonstrates his ongoing investigation into expressive figuration, where the human or animal subject becomes a site for exploring materiality, gesture, and psychological depth. The scale of the work—over five feet in height—gives the portrait a commanding physical presence, demanding an embodied encounter from the viewer. Areas of the canvas breathe with exposed ground while others build into dense impasto passages, creating a dynamic push and pull between surface and depth. Presented by Guy Hepner in New York, "Reel Is Tick Pet Portrait" offers collectors an opportunity to acquire a significant example of Paddison's distinctive pictorial language at a pivotal moment in his career.