- This event has passed.
Spotlight Series | Masculine Beauty in Baroque and Contemporary Contexts
MFA Spotlight Series | Masculine Beauty in Baroque and Contemporary Contexts with Natalie Velez and Brett F. Harvey
Join MFA Docent and Ph.D. Candidate Natalie Velez and contemporary artist Brett F. Harvey for a thought-provoking gallery talk that bridges intimidating physicality and pensive vulnerability. Within the special exhibitions In Caravaggio’s Light and Baroque Continuum, see how these notions have been continuously evolving from Caravaggio, the Caravaggisti, and the contemporary.
Harvey is captivated by the patterns of culture and civilization that human beings repeat over and over. He uses emblematic materials of our contemporary civilization to help question the perspective of our culture—referring to lessons that have been learned, forgotten, and rediscovered countless times.
MFA Spotlight Series | Masculine Beauty in Baroque and Contemporary Contexts with Natalie Velez and Brett F. Harvey
Tuesday, January 6, 2026
11:00 AM–12:00 PM
FREE for MFA Members; Included with the cost of admission for Not-Yet Members
Registration required.
Not yet a member?
Become a member today and enjoy all the benefits membership at the MFA offers!
MFA Members enjoy free admission for an entire year, early access to special exhibitions, discounts at the MFA Shop and Café Clementine, special member-only exclusive events, and more. Bring the whole family!
ABOUT BRETT F. HARVEY
Born in 1985 in Boston, Massachusetts, Brett F. Harvey currently works and resides in Naples, Florida with his wife, artist Lauren Amalia Redding and two sons. He attended the New Hampshire Institute of Art, notably studying under James Aponovich and Marcus Greene. During that time, Harvey spent five weeks studying at the Florence School of Fine Arts in Florence, Italy, which proved transformative. Though he obtained his BFA in Painting, his primary interest became sculpture, especially due to exposure in Italy.
After spending a couple years as an assistant preparator at the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, New Hampshire, Harvey attended the New York Academy of Art. There, his concentration was in sculpture and anatomy. He studied under sculptors Harvey Citron, Randy McIver, and Robert Simon. Harvey also painted under Steven Assael and Odd Nerdrum. Though he was dedicated to sculpting at this point, it was Nerdrum who instilled what would become a dominant principle in his own work: “It all goes back to the Greeks.”
Harvey lived and worked in Queens, New York for seven years following graduate school. During that time, he worked as a fabricator and the lead installation specialist for a prominent contemporary artist. This afforded him the opportunity to expand and refine his fabrication experience, and also to travel. Simultaneously, Harvey continued to make his own work and exhibit it primarily in New York City and the Northeast.
In 2018, Harvey and his wife, Lauren Amalia Redding, partnered to found H&R Studio in Naples, Florida, where they both maintain their own studio practices. In addition to creating his own artwork, which is represented by Method & Concept, Harvey still performs high-end art installation on a freelance basis.
ABOUT NATALIE VELEZ
In 2009, Natalie Velez moved from St. Petersburg, Russia to St. Petersburg, Florida. Natalie credits her relocation for opening a new world for her: that of American contemporary art and how it can alter the ways in which we visualize and conceptualize the world.
Natalie earned her B.A. and M.A. degrees from the State University for Culture and Arts in St. Petersburg, Russia. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in philosophy and aesthetics in visual art from the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts, headquartered in Maine (IDSVA). In her research, she explores the intersection of politics and cross-cultural art collaborations.
Natalie’s professional experience includes working as an international education and business consultant, art gallery owner, and educator of arts and philosophy. She presented her work on the relations of arts, aesthetics, and philosophy during her residences in Mexico and Italy, as well as at institutions such as the University of Tampa, Eckerd College, Grace College, and the Museum of Fine Arts. She spoke at the 60th International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University and present at the 11th in vivo Dubrovnik Conference on the Philosophy of Art at The Inter-University Centre in Dubrovnik, Croatia.
Images:
Brett F. Harvey, Language, 2020, gypsum cement, weathering steel and oriented strand board, 67 1/4″ h x 20″ w x 17 1/4″ d (171 cm h x 51 cm w x 44 cm d), unique
Brett F. Harvey, Lithic, 2021, engineered cementitious composite and weathering steel, 92″ h x 20″ w x 45″ d (233 cm h x 51 cm w x 115 cm d), edition 1 of 3
Brett F. Harvey, Self portrait while modeling Temple Tempo Template, 2022.
