Phil Hale:
Walk Through Walls or DOn’t
September 12–OCtober 3, 2O26
Opening Reception with the artist
September 12, 5–9 PM
Ryan Graff Contemporary presents Walk Through Walls or Don’t, a new exhibition by Phil Hale.
The title of this exhibition arrives as an impossible instruction, followed almost immediately by its own undoing. Walk through walls. Or don’t. Between those two propositions lies an oppositional territory of will and refusal: the desire to overcome what stands before us, and the equally human impulse to remain exactly where we are.
Hale’s work has long resisted fixed narratives. His images operate through collision and association, allowing meaning to emerge without ever fully settling into place. Figures, gestures, fragments, and events are charged with consequence, while withholding the comfort of explanation. Hale's images set events in motion and resist resolution. The viewer is left inside that instability, an invitation to participate rather than simply observe.
Perhaps the wall is the point. Perhaps passing through it is. Hale leaves us somewhere less stable: standing before the thing, deciding. There is no instruction for what comes next. The choice is ours.
This exhibition will feature eight new paintings and eight new supporting works, as well as a limited silkscreen release.
Please note that the digital catalogue will be sent the week of September 7.
Phil Hale (b. 1963, Boston) is a figurative painter who lives and works near London, known for his characteristically intense paintings and portraits. In the course of his career, Hale’s works have explored devastation, impending doom, dynamic motion, complexity, and distress. His early work included prestigious illustration commissions for Stephen King, RayGun, Playboy Magazine and Spectrum. Hale was awarded third prize in BP Portrait Award (2000) and a joint second prize with Brendan Kelly in the same award (2001). Hale’s portrait commissions include Prime Minister Tony Blair’s official portrait for the House of Commons in London, which was completed in 2007.
Recent solo exhibitions include Anita Rogers Gallery, NY, USA (2025); No. 20 Gallery, London, UK; Jonathan Levine Gallery, New York, USA (2017); Five Hundred Dollars, London UK (2010). Hale’s works are featured in the permanent collections of the Palace of Westminster, Lord’s Cricket Ground and the National Portrait Gallery, as well as significant corporate collections including Sony and Warner Bros.