Born in San Francisco in 1980, Aaron Nagel began doing art and design work for his band before finishing high school. Amidst the following years of both national and international touring, Aaron continued to work on album covers, shirt designs and websites for himself and friends in the music industry. Having received no formal training, Nagel began painting with acrylics and quickly moved to oils, gradually developing a distinct approach to figurative surrealism. In Nagel's current work, he strives to create a new form of Iconography; one that utilizes traditional religious imagery but is devised from distinctly modern and secular perspective.

 

Nagel's painting "Jessica" has recently been selected as a semi-finalist for the Outwin Boochever portrait competition at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in May of 2009. We expect this honor to propel Nagel's work into mainstream consciousness with it's prominence and prestige.