Magic Hour

McClain Gallery, Houston, TX

15 March - 03 May 2025

McClain Gallery is pleased to present Bradley Kerl: Magic Hour, an exhibition of new paintings by the Houston-based artist. Known for his vibrant paintings of the everyday infused with thoughtful light, Kerl’s new work takes this exploration to a specific moment when twilight turns sunlight through the trees into magic. In Magic Hour, these “micro-moments” are shared with the viewer so they, too, can feel the casual sublimity of the natural world along with the artist. This is Kerl’s first solo exhibition at McClain Gallery.

Kerl is captivated by the banal becoming transcendent. The moment of the sun setting is one such surreal experience that, while it takes place every day, is no less awe-inspiring because of its commonality. It’s an ephemeral moment as trite as it is beautiful and as common as it is extraordinary. The subject of several of Kerl’s paintings in this exhibition, including Lakeside from 2024, the sunset proliferates in sensitive renderings that suspend the moment in time over bodies of water. In Lakeside, the long tail of reflected light is hot and insistent, a small magnet at the center of the composition, while lush plant life reads like a screen placed in front of the viewer. It imbues the act of looking with a sense of being concealed and safe. 

Compositionally, Night of the Hodag (2024) is complex and efficacious. The structure of the composition dictates our viewing: the long pine boughs lead the viewer up slowly to the top row of party lights which situates us among the grove and within a not-so-specific festive atmosphere. Kerl’s love of visual media like album covers, playing cards, and signage comes to play here through the inclusion of the mythical Hodag, a bull-horned, lizard-like creature with spines down its back. Hodag is celebrated in Rhinelander, Wisconsin where he has a Chupacabra-like reputation. This embedded imagery and text, painted black on black with bright orange and green only peeking through on the very edges, illustrates how Kerl’s source material is filtered through memory, experience, and imagination. Finding Hodag is an easter egg – a reward the viewer is given by the artist for the act of looking keenly at his work. 

Kerl has referred to Magic Hour (Tulips) from 2025 as the Platonic ideal of the exhibition’s title: it is a buzzy, softly glowing purple, and it is beautiful, confident, and bright, like a pink tulip. The moon’s sliver of a crescent fits perfectly, with its inherent mystery and magnetism reaching from the heavens, taking the place of the sun in the other paintings of the show. The subject matter is simple and yet the strength of the sharp composition and carefully calibrated color allows a tuning out of the noise of life and focus on what’s in front of us. Kerl's mastery of his craft enthralls the viewer, but his goal with Magic Hour is to remind us to embrace the uncomplicated magic of the world – to remind us it exists.

BRADLEY KERL (b. 1986, Beaumont, TX) is a painter based in Houston, Texas. He holds Drawing & Painting degrees from both the University of North Texas (BFA) and the University of Houston (MFA). Kerl has been the focus of solo exhibitions at Gold Diggers, Los Angeles, CA; Jonathan Hopson Gallery, Houston, TX; Art League Houston, Galveston Arts Center, Galveston, TX; Ivester Contemporary, Austin, TX; and Art Palace Gallery, Houston, TX. Kerl teaches at The Glassell School of Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Group exhibitions include Paradisia at Mini Galerie in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Rude Assembly Part 4 at China Heights Gallery in Sydney, Australia, Got It For Cheap at Galleri Golsa in Oslo, Norway, 10 Years 10 Artists at Octavia Art Gallery in New Orleans, LA, and FUN (2017) at Kirk Hopper Fine Art in Dallas, TX. Artist residencies include Villa Lena in Tuscany, Italy and 100 W Corsicana in Corsicana, TX. His work also appears in New American Paintings No. 138 and Friend of The Artist: Volume 7. He was recently awarded the 2025 Jones Artist Award through the Houston Endowment. McClain Gallery has included his work in group shows (2024) and one solo exhibition (2025).