William Brickel’s elongated, typically contorted, typically intense figures possess an ambiguous magnificence that could be a bluntly fashionable nod to Sixteenth-century mannerist styling, providing a whiff of Paul Cadmus, Lucian Freud, and even Egon Schiele. Principally, although, they maintain your eye with their sturdy and distinctive presence; they crackle with feeling, pulling you in with their mysterious units and garments in colours match for a Prada temper board.

With a brand new solo present, “Was It Ever Honest,” having simply opened at Michael Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles (following final autumn’s “Not the Entire Reality, however Solely a Little bit of It” on the Artist Room in London), there’s buzz and momentum circulating Brickel. At simply 29, the artist appears to be like genuinely agog—and quite just like the characters in his work—as he recounts the truth that a number of works offered proper in entrance of him on the opening.

This newest physique of labor, a mixture of giant, meaty oil work—such because the gloriously pink *The Pink Room—*and a collection of extra intimate however putting works on paper in charcoal or watercolor, was created particularly for this present. “As soon as they’re within the area, the work removes itself from me,” says Brickel, whose work evolve from his personal recollections, “which I like as a result of then individuals can replicate their very own emotions or narratives onto it.”

Not that it isn’t difficult to half with the work, he acknowledges. However when you do, “you possibly can’t then actually keep in mind all of the in-depth-ness that went into them, so you must attempt to do one other one to work all of it out once more,” he says. “For some time, I toyed with the concept of them simply dwelling their very own lives once they’ve been offered. I think about within the evening the characters would possibly leap out of the work and begin strolling round.”