"Surreal environments allow me to address experiences around race that realism alone can’t hold..."
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Ronald Hall
Ronald Hall (b.1967) seamlessly blends fiction and nonfiction in his narrative paintings, crafting otherworldly spaces where figures contemplate and navigate the complexities of the past, present, and future. Hall transforms domestic interiors, plantation architecture, and symbolic landscapes into dreamlike spaces where the past, present, and future collide. His narrative paintings often center the Black figure as both subject and witness, navigating complex legacies of race, identity, and social construction.
Rooted in the visual language of early 20th-century Surrealism, Hall’s practice carries forward that tradition while infusing it with media references that range from Civil Rights photography to video game aesthetics—drawing on his extensive professional background as a gaming graphics artist.
HELLO RONALD, THANK YOU FOR JOINING OUR INITIATIVE AND LENDING YOUR TIME TO WORK WITH 4BYSIX.
TO START, PLEASE CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE BEGINNING OF YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS AND HOW SIGNIFICANT INFLUENCES LIKE DIGITAL EXPERIMENTATION, PERSONAL HISTORY, SURREAL ENVIRONMENTS COME TOGETHER TO ADDRESS RACE AND CONSTRUCTIONISM?
My process often begins in a space of experimentation rather than resolution, testing images digitally, disrupting them, manipulating them, and allowing ambiguity to surface within the image before committing to paint. Digital experimentation gives me a way to construct and deconstruct space, which parallels how race and identity are built, imposed, and experienced rather than inherently fixed. My personal history operates more as an undercurrent than a subject, shaping the emotional and psychological terrain of the work rather than dictating specific narratives. Surreal environments allow me to address experiences around race that realism alone can’t hold—spaces where memory, history, and imagination overlap without needing to resolve into a single explanation.
YOU RECENTLY MADE A PAINTING FOR 4BYSIX’S INITIATIVE TITLED “CUSTODIANS OF THE INNER LIGHT”, GIVEN THAT YOUR WORK IS DRAWN FROM A VARIETY OF INFLUENCES, PLEASE CAN YOU TELL US IF ANYTHING IN PARTICULAR SPARKED THE DIRECTION FOR THIS SCENE?
Tobacco plantations were a huge part of the history of the transatlantic slave trade. The scene in the painting evolved slowly as a way of allowing multiple moments to exist at once, history, memory, and the present unfolding within the same space. A reminder that the systems still exist even when the focus is elsewhere.
AS YOU OFTEN INCORPORATE MEDIA REFERENCES LIKE VIDEO GAME IMAGERY IN YOUR WORK, CAN YOU TELL US IF THERE WERE ANY SPECIFIC REFERENCES IN THIS WORK?
No, nothing specifically, only aesthetically.
FOLLOWING THE TOPIC OF ENVIRONMENT, WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON SUSTAINABILITY WITHIN THE VISUAL ARTS SECTOR AND DO YOU THINK ARTISTS CAN BALANCE CREATIVE PRACTICES WITH SUSTAINABLE RESPONSIBILITY IN TODAY’S LANDSCAPE?
Sustainability in the visual arts isn’t a fixed standard so much as an ongoing awareness of materials, processes, and the broader systems our work moves through. Artists can balance creative freedom with responsibility, not by limiting imagination, but by working with greater intention and care within the realities of our time.
FINALLY, AS WE VENTURE INTO 2026, PLEASE CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT ANY UPCOMING PROJECTS YOU ARE CURRENTLY WORKING ON AND EXCITED TO SHARE? ARE THERE ANY THEMES OR TECHNIQUES THAT YOU WILL BE FOCUSING ON?
I plan to continue focusing on the artist residency that I am currently participating in at the ISCP in Brooklyn New York, and to also focus on a new body of work for an upcoming solo exhibition in 2026, yet to be publicly announced.
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