West Bank-born artist Navot Miller has captured internet attention with his vibrant New Queer Intimist paintings, but questions linger about whether his colorful works represent genuine artistry or Instagram-friendly spectacle. The 30-something painter, known for his pink-glowing canvases and charismatic social media presence, has become a polarizing figure in Berlin's contemporary art scene.

Miller first gained widespread recognition in September 2023 when he promoted his mural "Lago di Homo" at C/O Berlin with a casual social media trailer. The promotional video featured footage of him painting, half-naked male bodies at Lake Como, and his melancholic voice flirting with an unknown addressee through voice messages. The trailer created an ominous feeling that something catastrophic was about to happen, though nothing materialized until the real tragedy struck on October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel.

Born in an ultra-religious village in the West Bank, Miller moved to Berlin in 2013 to study architecture and finally experience unlimited freedom as a gay man. For over a decade, he lived the Berlin dream of a queer expat, residing in the KuLe art house on Auguststraße, experimenting with new media at Weißensee Art Academy, and exploring relationships at Möbel-Olfe in Kreuzberg. However, Miller recently left Berlin permanently, stating that since October 7th, "the good days are over."

Despite his departure, Miller's current exhibition "Paradise" is taking place at Galerie Dittrich & Schlechtriem in Berlin, for which he created another Instagram trailer. The exhibition title references his lost paradise - the good days he experienced in Berlin as a gay Jew before October 7th. Miller resists being pigeonholed, insisting his art represents more than just identity conflicts expressed through colorful imagery.

Miller's large-format paintings consistently employ four primary colors - red, yellow, green, and blue - plus pink. His color palette appears childlike and naive, with bodies suddenly turning purple and lanky, and perspectives flattening in the style of the Fauvists. Rather than displaying obvious identity conflicts, his art tends to be conflict-avoidant yet highly immersive. His geometric color ornaments often extend beyond the picture frames, filling entire exhibition walls and drawing viewers into the pictorial spaces through extended perspectives.

The artist deliberately copies his hypnotic color palette from the color codes of popular children's toys, employing a marketing trick that captures attention beyond just children. This raises persistent questions about whether Miller functions as an Instagram artist. During video calls, he certainly behaves like an influencer, skillfully moving his phone camera in rhythm with his head movements while colorful frescoes blur into a sea of colors behind him.

Miller directly addresses his audience with clear rhetoric, employing strategic pauses and letting his gaze thoughtfully drift off-camera before returning with hyperactive energy to his storytelling. "I love shows!" he declares. "Since I've been living in New York, I only hang out with people from Broadway." This performative aspect extends to his exhibition openings, where he unveiled his paintings with salon-style reveals, dramatically tearing silk shower curtains from his works while ensuring the spectacle was perfectly positioned for online sharing.

His 2024 exhibition "A Pink Shul" featured an omnipink-colored synagogue panorama with an installed prayer bench for kneeling, bathing the entire Wannsee Contemporary gallery space in the titular color. This installation achieved algorithmic breakthrough, at least within Berlin art circles. Despite his theatrical presentations, Miller addresses serious topics, particularly the political conditions of his existence as a gay Jew, stating painfully realistically: "I don't know how long I'll still have rights."

Miller describes his paintings as snapshots of his life, collaged from photos and videos he takes with his phone - essentially like his Instagram trailers. His subjects are usually close friends and lovers who are no longer part of his life for various reasons. Through painting, he attempts to bring them back - "the lost paradise, you know?" This explains the Biedermeier-style interiors where exhausted men fold into protective body clusters on beds, and nature scenes featuring his friends as innocent wanderers hanging out against massive mountain backdrops or standing as flickering ayahuasca hippies by foaming seas.

What exactly threatens Miller's inner paradise remains invisible, but viewers always sense the "after" perspective. We look at his painted safe spaces like dollhouse rooms in a model world, knowing this world no longer exists. This creates a stale feeling reminiscent of David Hockney, the loneliness painter of the Hollywood Hills. Miller's figures also turn introvertedly away from viewers, excluding them, with gazes longingly extending beyond the picture frame, vaguely pointing toward the unknown future - gestures from the Romantic repertoire.

Through Edward Hopper and his popular American miniatures, these techniques became beloved tools of cinematic suggestion and inspiration for Miller. His concept of seduction doesn't involve overwhelming immersive spectacle but rather enigmatic refusal - the end of the show that makes audiences want it even more. Walking through Miller's "Paradise" exhibition, the shower curtains lying on the floor immediately catch attention, indicating the show has already ended.

The paintings reveal naked men Miller unveiled on opening night, while a melodramatic soundtrack plays through a small music box in the exhibition space, mercilessly pulling viewers into the desired emotional state of his soft pictorial world. Initially seeming like cheap seduction and Instagram art, the experience transforms when the music momentarily stops. Standing before one of the paintings, staring at exposed bodies, viewers suddenly feel as if they're the ones standing naked - caught voyeurs thrown out of warming immersion, estranged from the seemingly perfect world of the pictures and unable to return to their own reality.

This dissociative moment reveals Miller's true artistic destination: an open, uncertain no-man's land that Berlin's art scene once represented and Instagram never will. His seductive art ultimately transports viewers to this liminal space between worlds, where genuine artistic experience transcends social media spectacle and challenges conventional boundaries between performance and authenticity.