"The strongest booths at this year's NADA Miami returned to two persistent ideas: that the future, particularly queer and ecological, is already seeping into the present and that the mundane objects around us, such as light switches, social security cards, our pets, and plants, can carry the emotional and political weight of entire worlds. Nowhere was this clearer than in Miami painter Thomas Bils's photorealistic works at Baker-Hall Gallery, in which precision and intimacy converge with existential dread."
"His painting "Phone Wallet Keys" (2025), depicting a social security card, won the coveted Pérez Prize acquisition, marking the first time the museum selected a work from a local NADA presentation. Bils, who grew up in Central Florida, treats hyper-specific details as the points where everyday life cracks open, and the latent emotions are exposed. "The less I think about why something interests me, the better," he told Hyperallergic."
NADA Miami booths emphasized that queer and ecological futures are already present and that mundane objects carry emotional and political weight. Thomas Bils's photorealistic paintings at Baker-Hall Gallery combine precision and intimacy with existential dread. His painting "Phone Wallet Keys" (2025), depicting a social security card, won the Pérez Prize acquisition, the first time the museum selected a work from a local NADA presentation. Bils treats hyper-specific details as the points where everyday life cracks open and latent emotions surface. Hyperrealism becomes surrealism when viewers recognize the anxiety carried by objects. Other works, like "Civilization Starter Kit" (2025), use scale and humor to reveal deeper meanings.
Read at Hyperallergic
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