Early Tuesday afternoon during Nada Miami\u2019s VIP preview, Alexander Hawkins, the director of the Atlanta-based gallery Hawkins Headquarters, sounded surprised by the fair\u2019s offerings. \u201cIs it always so painterly?\u201d<\/p>\n
The gallery is making its debut at Nada Miami with an adventurous presentation by the lens-based artist Jackson Markovic focused on the city\u2019s nightclubs. Markovic\u2019s bleary, fluorescent images were installed on light boxes, with each apparatus priced at $12,000. Several had sold within the preview\u2019s opening hours.<\/p>\n
The glow of Markovic\u2019s images certainly made the booth stand out amid the predominantly canvas-based work at the fair, something Hawkins says he was surprised by given the fair\u2019s reputation as a haven for edgier work. \u201cMy impression was that Nada has always been the place to be experimental,\u201d he says. \u201cEverything is so safe here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Painting a pretty picture<\/p>\n
As much as there is safety in numbers, there also seems to be numbers in safety for the dealers at Nada, many of whom reported brisk sales on Tuesday. The New York-based gallery Shrine had already sold most of the works on its stand, which features two very different styles of painting. Paintings from Angela China\u2019s abstract, expressionistic series Wildflower sold out quickly, according to a gallery representative.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, a group of hyperrealistic paintings by the New York-based, Florida-born artist Alex Hutton was mostly gone as well. Many of Hutton\u2019s works focus on maximalist theme-park rides\u2014massive roller coasters, infinite waterslides\u2014although one piece depicting a herd of iguanas had also sold to a local buyer.<\/p>\n
Burnaway, a publication based in Atlanta that regularly participates in fairs like Nada Miami, had also sold several works by Clare Torina from its stand, a collaboration with the Memphis-based gallery Sheet Cake. \u201cThis is one of the busier first mornings I\u2019ve seen in a while,\u201d Brandon Sheats, Burnaway\u2019s executive director, said during the preview. \u201cPeople are excited to see work again.\u201d<\/p>\n
The New York gallery the Locker Room is showing new work from Eric Diehl, whose Western-inspired scenes recalled the Wim Wenders film Paris, Texas (1984) while delving into the darker aspects of the American
West. Night Fires (2025), a landscape depicting a military drone flying across the Nevada mountains, sold during the preview for $15,000, according to gallery founder Samara Bliss.<\/p>\n
The Miami-based gallery Baker\u2014Hall is showing works by the local painter Thomas Bils, whose detailed paintings have been shown widely across the city in recent years. One canvas, Phone Keys Wallet (2025), depicts Bils gripping his own Social Security card (cleverly covering the last four digits); the work has been acquired by the P\u00e9rez Art Museum Miami (Pamm) as part of its Nada Acquisition Gift for Pamm programme. (The museum also acquired works by Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe and Pallavi Sen from the fair through the gift programme.)<\/p>\n
Miami Beach after dark<\/p>\n
Similarly to Markovic\u2019s photographs, nightlife themes permeate Raffi
Kalenderian\u2019s work on the stand of Los Angeles gallery Gattopardo, which is anchored by a history painting depicting the interior of Mac\u2019s Club Deuce, the 99-year-old Miami Beach dive bar favoured by the likes of the late Anthony Bourdain and much of the art-world cognoscenti.<\/p>\n
Bathing the bar in lurid red, Kalenderian included likenesses of friends and lovers in the scene and added famous Miami imagery to the watering hole\u2019s television screens: one shows an image from the series Miami Vice; the other displays a locally iconic shot of former Miami Heat teammates Dwyane Wade and LeBron James connecting for a no-look alley-oop dunk.<\/p>\n
Kalenderian\u2019s project was proposed specifically for Nada Miami, according to the gallerist Chris Henke, and the gallery has also produced custom-embroidered hats that the fair is selling at its merchandise booth. The $55,000 painting had already sold to a New York-based client prior to the fair\u2019s VIP opening, as many interested locals learned on inquiring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Early Tuesday afternoon during Nada Miami\u2019s VIP preview, Alexander Hawkins, the director of the Atlanta-based gallery Hawkins Headquarters,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[13359,123,125,124,40750,115],"class_list":["post-70586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-art-basel-miami-beach-2025","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-nada","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}