Paul Rouphail

Paul Rouphail (b.1987, Chicago, IL), lives and works in Philadelphia, PA.

Based in the tradition of still-life painting, his 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 inform and contradict one another through an atmospheric blend of sharp light and various visual layering devices. Recurring subjects like overflowing beverages, neatly prepared meals, books, insects and flags become the compositional guidelines for his work, functioning as both framing devices and stand-ins for the figure. Walls and windows cut sharp profiles against deep pictorial space, foregrounding an array of beguiling subjects within luminous—and ominous—settings.

Paul Rouphail received his BFA from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh and his MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence in 2016. His work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally at Stems Gallery, Paris, FR; Smart Objects, Los Angeles, CA; Jack Barrett Gallery, New York, NY; and Stems Gallery, Brussels, BE. Recent group exhibitions include Chart, New York, NY; Huxley-Parlour, London, UK; Galerie Rolando Anselmi, Rome, IT; Jack Barrett Gallery, New York, NY; Carl Kostyal, Stockholm, SE; Stems Gallery with WOAW Gallery, Hong Kong, HK; Tong Art Advisory, East Hampton, NY; Winter Street Gallery, Martha’s Vineyard, MA; Ochi Gallery, Ketchum, ID; Galerie Sultana, Paris, FR; Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, New York, NY; Fisher Parrish Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; Pilot Projects, Philadelphia, PA and Little Berlin, Philadelphia, PA; among others.