Paul P. in Border Crossings

Paul P.’s solo exhibition Gamboling Green is reviewed in Border Crossings

By: Tatum Dooley

When I think of Paul P.’s portraits, I think of a tilt of the head. Slightly off to one side, a gaze cast down or tilted up to the sky—neck outstretched and accessible. How do these postures articulate the space between shame and pride? Performed chasteness, a head down and eyes averted from the camera, works in erotic imagery as performed shame, played for the benefit of the viewer. Paul P.’s act of rendering models from gay erotic magazines, in the style of 19th-century art, becomes a performance itself. In appropriating the images, new meaning forms. The portraits and corresponding abstractions and colour studies exist within a kind of purgatory. There’s a sensation of floating while looking at the work, thanks to the in-between qualities of visibility/ invisibility, stigma/pride, low brow/high brow, contrast/ monotone and implicit/explicit desire.

“Each countenance is selected from the multitudes of young men implicated in the then-outlaw publications because they appear to possess the look and feel of art,” Paul P. wrote in the exhibition text for his recent exhibition, “Gamboling Green,” at Cooper Cole in Toronto. “Their portraits are then systematically rendered along modes of late nineteenth century painting and drawing; another tenuous period of aesthetic energy wherein homosexuality transformed from an act into a personality.” Superimposing images from archival magazines within the context of art history cultivates a conversation between the historical past (19th-century painting), the contemporary past (photographs from gay erotic magazines in the 20th century) and the present (the act of painting). In combining these different periods, Paul P. shifts the meaning of the gaze away from the context in which it was created and projects an updated role onto the subjects—and the viewer. In short, Paul P. removes the dust of time.

He notes the paradox of invisibility and visibility in his work in the exhibition text. “Invisibly visible, unlocatably everywhere: if the gay presence is threatened by absence, it is not only because of the secret (or not so secret) intentions of those who are fascinated by gays, or even the result of the devastating work of AIDS, but also because gays have been de-gaying themselves in the process of making themselves visible.” This is the artist quoting queer theorist Leo Bersani. The portraits, the apex of visibility in the show, are a compilation of the abstractions and colour studies— both of which exist in the realm of invisibility. The abstractions, fields of vibrant colours shifting into darkness, are reminiscent of thresholds: doorways or windows. The colour studies are compounded of layer upon layer of colour, visible only when viewed from the side. The tactile elements of paint in both the abstractions and colour studies ask the question: What is under the surface of the portraits?

Implicit and explicit desire converge in Paul P.’s work to create portraits that are soft and erotic—the contradiction creating a sense of an uncanny valley where the figure feels familiar and unfamiliar at the same time (as do Paul P.’s abstracted paintings of Venice). As theorist Silvan Tomkins writes about shame, “one is suddenly looked at by one who is strange, or … one wishes to look at or commune with another person but suddenly cannot because he is strange, or one expected him to be familiar but he suddenly appears unfamiliar, or one started to smile but found one was smiling at a stranger.” If the downcast gaze of the models is a performed affect, this role is transferred to the viewer by the confused states of knowing and unknowing present on the canvas. You can’t really be sure what you’re looking at.

To view the full article visit Border Crossings.

For more information about Paul P. please contact the gallery:

info@coopercolegallery.com

+1.416.531.8000

Cookie	Duration	Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-advertisement	1 year	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Advertisement".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics	1 year	This cookies is set by GDPR Cookie Consent WordPress Plugin. The cookie is used to remember the user consent for the cookies under the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	1 year	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance	1 year	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".

Cookie	Duration	Description
_ga	2 years	This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to calculate visitor, session, campaign data and keep track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookies store information anonymously and assign a randomly generated number to identify unique visitors.
_gid	1 day	This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to store information of how visitors use a website and helps in creating an analytics report of how the wbsite is doing. The data collected including the number visitors, the source where they have come from, and the pages viisted in an anonymous form.

Cookie	Duration	Description
IDE	1 year 24 days	Used by Google DoubleClick and stores information about how the user uses the website and any other advertisement before visiting the website. This is used to present users with ads that are relevant to them according to the user profile.
test_cookie	15 minutes	This cookie is set by doubleclick.net. The purpose of the cookie is to determine if the user's browser supports cookies.
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE	5 months 27 days	This cookie is set by Youtube. Used to track the information of the embedded YouTube videos on a website.

Cookie	Duration	Description
CONSENT	16 years 9 months 23 days 2 hours	No description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional	1 year	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others	1 year	No description
_gat_gtag_UA_135534658_1	1 minute	No description

Menu

Paul P. in Border Crossings

May 18, 2021