"You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than with a kind word alone " --- Al Capone A photography exhibition at the Tate Modern in London several years had the incomprehensible , for that exhibition , name , Cruel and Tender . Strangely , that title now seems entirely fitting for the seductive yet disconcerting new drawings emanating from the creative mind of Christina Hale . These works display Ms Hale's singular drawing virtuosity , so different from the usual vacuous conceptualism that wanly passes for significance in the art world today . Mixing monochromatic line with almost psychedelic color ...... the cold steel of her revolvers mixed with bright flowers combine these stunning visual contradictions into a Pop Art meets Scar face sensibility . Ms Hale is an artist of her generation in the simplified street sensibility of her raw expressionistic renderings . These drawings , however , are not mere reflections of what Hale sees in her world today but what she feels and remembers from her past . They are the drawn from the recollection of personal tragedy within her family history . Christina Hale utilizes her considerable talent to distill and exorcise those troubling memories into these remarkably beautiful yet disquieting drawings.


Robert Flynn Johnson , Curator Emeritus , Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts , Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco