Taking equal parts influence from Renaissance painting as from contemporary gaming aesthetics, Julien Nguyen’s extraordinary skill has positioned him as one of the most exciting young painters working today. Deeply academic, Nguyen’s practice is informed by the philosophic and aesthetic predecessors in art history in addition to his immediate world, populated by his friends and colloquial contemporaries. Since Nguyen’s seminal inclusion in the 2017 Whitney Biennial, the young Los Angeles-based painter has distinguished himself with his contemporary and queer renditions of Biblical and Renaissance aesthetics legacies; in recent years, he has debuted in critically acclaimed solo exhibitions at the Swiss Institute in New York and Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati. Isolated against indefinite space, the steely skinned protagonist of Study for the Temptation of Christ stands perfectly poised, elusively embodying in his majestic pose Nguyen’s aesthetic answer to painting’s t.mes less quest for divine beauty.

Within the fantastical dimensions and intimate niches of his painterly tableau, Julien Nguyen revisits foundational narratives of Western history and mythology, delicately negotiating omnipresent themes of power, desire, and spirituality in the subjectivity of his contemporary male muses. The distinctively anachronistic universes of Nguyen’s celebrated portraiture unravel his rich constellations of both historical and stylistic inspirations, which connect modern science fiction to Early Renaissance paintings of the fifteenth century to Japanese manga. Made explicit in the present work, Nguyen’s artistic ethos finds deep resonance in the vernacular of Renaissance humanism, particularly as he elicits its latent erotic nuances. According to curator Steven Matijcio, “The relatively common Renaissance custom of the painter incorporating his young assistants (often lovers), as characters within these scenes heightens the sexual charge of the composition… Centuries later, the eros of Nguyen’s paintings in this ongoing tradition smoulder quietly, but feverishly as he ‘queers’ his mythical evocations with the sinuous bodies and stoic visages of friends and lovers.” (Steven Matijcio, Exh. Brochure, Cincinnati, Contemporary Arts Center, Julien Nguyen: Returns, 2019 (online))

Looking at works by Italian Renaissance masters from Leonardo da Vinci to Caravaggio and Piero della Francesca, the title of the present work recalls the fresco Temptations of Christ executed by Sandro Botticelli in the Sistine Chapel, Rome. The Temptations of Christ depicts a parallel between the Stories of Moses and the gospels of Christ as a sign of continuity between the Old and the New Test.mes nt. Within the fresco, three temptations are depicted wherein the Devil unsuccessfully seeks to deceive Christ three t.mes s. The titles invocation in the present work by Nguyen powerfully suggests the divinity of his painterly subject. Nguyen’s virtuosic interpretation of his aesthetic influences in its rich terrestrial landscape, the tonal flux of which recalls the early technique of imprimatur underpainting, Murky sienna hues faintly illuminate here between ethereal layers of paint, recalling the treasured Renaissance paintings of Masaccio, Leonardo da Vinci, and Pontormo which masterfully render depth to the flesh. In the crisp precision of his sitter’s posture and peaceful demeanour, Nguyen additionally invokes the tender intimacy of Elizabeth Peyton’s portraits, which similarly depict close friends, as well as the sensuous corporeality of Egon Schiele’s paintings, where elongated figures gesture at the carnality of their inner psychological states.

Entwining the personal and the divine in an opulent worship of the body, Study for the Temptation of Christ is a consummate example of the primordial humanist motifs that preoccupy one of the most novel one of the most novel voices in contemporary art. Nguyen’s enthusiastic and analytical return to the unresolved aesthetic and philosophical matters of Classical art profoundly renegotiates universal virtues of beauty and divinity, especially within the increasingly secular context of today’s metropolitan society. As its every intricate detail here imbues the young sitter with an aura of sublimity and mysticism, Study for the Temptation of Christ testifies to the apotheosis of Nguyen’s transcendental artistic practice.