Point of Light

Ivester Contemporary, Austin, TX

28 February - 04 April 2026

Ivester Contemporary is pleased to present Point of Light, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Bradley Kerl. This marks the artist’s third solo exhibition with the gallery and features a body of work that explores scale, structure, and the shifting meanings of familiar imagery. Kerl set out to create paintings of varying scales that maintain equal visual and conceptual strength regardless of size, building each composition atop a framework of geometry and symmetry that is then disguised, subverted, or reworked through an intuitive, painterly process.

 Drawing from a wide range of source material including personal photographs, memories, vernacular painting, and his children’s drawings, Kerl constructs layered paintings that operate as both collage and invention. The works examine how symbols and settings can transform depending on context, highlighting dualities such as beauty and destruction, warmth and violence, awe and unease. Recognizable imagery invites entry, while subtle disruptions and compositional shifts challenge certainty and encourage viewers to reconsider their initial assumptions. Embracing visible process and the physical hand of the artist, Kerl foregrounds painterly imperfection as a response to increasingly algorithmic modes of image consumption.

 Developed during a period of personal and geographic transition as Kerl relocated with his family from Texas to Louisiana, the exhibition reflects on time, memory, and movement. The title Point of Light functions as both description and inquiry, referencing the recurring presence of light throughout the paintings while also suggesting direction, focus, and possibility. Light serves here as both subject and metaphor, a source of warmth, life, and perception that guides viewers through a body of work grounded in reflection, transformation, and renewal.

Bradley Kerl (b. 1986; Beaumont, TX) is a painter currently based in New Orleans, LA. He holds Drawing & Painting degrees from both the University of North Texas (BFA) and the University of Houston (MFA). Kerl’s practice investigates methods of framing subjects through the medium and history of painting. Using an iterative approach, and often broadening his scope to the use of common occurrences - his own pocket supercomputer, the art classroom’s still-life, his children’s drawings, a sunset - Bradley’s paintings are a call and response of completely banal yet totally transcendent everyday moments.