Paul Rouphail (b.1987, Chicago, IL), lives and works in Philadelphia, PA.
Based in the tradition of still-life painting, Paul Rouphail’s canvases subtly undermine their own realism with details reaching just beyond logical comprehension. Rouphail’s works present genre-bending scenes within scenes reminiscent of seventeenth-century European and twentieth-century American landscape painting renewed with psychologically and politically pointed components. Drawn from life, memory, and the history of painting, the everyday objects in Rouphail’s images intimately combine with one another through an atmospheric blend of sharp light and various visual layering devices. In his current body of work, the artist uses recurring subjects like flowers, pastries, books, and the American landscape as the compositional guidelines for his work, functioning as both framing devices and stand-ins for the figure. The artist’s recurring use of calendar dates thematically anchors the exhibition that speaks subtly to the passage of time. Walls and windows cut sharp profiles against deep pictorial space, foregrounding an array of beguiling subjects within luminous—and ominous—settings.
He received his BFA from Carnegie Mellon University, and his MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. Recent solo exhibitions include Date Paintings, Galerie Rolando Anselmi, Rome (2025), Hammer, Jack Barrett, New York (2024), Credenza, Stems Gallery, Paris (2024), A Nearer Sun, Jack Barrett, New York (2022); Another Night, Smart Objects, Los Angeles (2022); The Passenger, Stems Gallery, Brussels (2021). Recent group exhibitions include Rolando Anselmi, Rome, IT; Huxley Parlour, London, GB; Galerie Sultana, Paris, FR; Carl Kostyál, Stokholm, SE. Chart, Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, Fisher Parrish Gallery, George Adams Gallery, Nancy Margolis Gallery, and Microscope Gallery, New York, NY; and The Miller ICA at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA. Rouphail’s work has been reviewed in the Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles, Artsy, Le Journal des Arts, The Art Newspaper, Art News, Artspace, Bmore Art, Tank Magazine, and Art Asia Pacific, among others.