Paul P.
Dreamy time travel through gay history.
Paul P., “Untitled,” 2003
graphite on wove paper, 13” x 11” (National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; purchased 2020 with support of Diana Billes, Toronto; 49026; © Paul P.; photo courtesy NGC)
Look closely at almost any young man’s photograph in an erotic gay magazine. Now, cut away his body, especially the private parts, and remove the background. Snip away until only the man’s head remains.
Chances are you suddenly see that this young man, stripped of all context, resembles the polite boy next door rather than some lascivious seducer. He is probably smiling but with enough ambiguity that you can ascribe almost any storyline to his face.
These are the faces the Toronto artist known as Paul P. likes to reproduce in drawings and paintings. Gone is the notion of porn. Instead, the young men’s faces emerge from a dreamy fog, like something America’s James McNeill Whistler might have painted 150 years ago.
The National Gallery of Canada has opened an exhibition of 30 of these recontextualized young men alongside a handful of ethereal landscapes. The works in Paul P.: Amor et Mors were created during the past two decades and purchased for the gallery with the financial assistance from Toronto art philanthropist Diana Billes.
Paul P., “Untitled,” 2010
oil on wove paper, 9” x 6” (National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; purchased 2020 with support of Diana Billes, Toronto; 49042; © Paul P.; photo courtesy NGC)
The exhibition’s title comes from a drawing by British pre-Raphaelite artist Simeon Solomon that is held by the gallery. Dating from 1865 and titled Mors et Amor (“Death and Love”) it shows two lovers being separated by a deathly figure. Although the drawing is of a man and a woman, anyone who knew Solomon, a much-persecuted homosexual, would have likely imagined they were stand-ins for two men being separated by the mores of the time.
References to gay lives past is an important part of Paul P.’s work. He prefers faces from gay magazines published in what he calls the “golden age” of the gay world, a period between the Stonewall riots of 1969 and the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. “It is a bracketed period of aesthetic and cultural progress,” he says, “with periods of political and other forms of catastrophe on either side.”
The resulting works have a romantic aesthetic, rather than a sexualized one, and serve as a bridge to the Victorian era when homosexual themes in art were inferred rather than trumpeted.
Many of Paul P.’s enchanting figures and landscapes are no bigger than a sheet of writing paper, giving an intimate feel to the show, organized by Sonia Del Re, the gallery’s senior curator of prints and drawings. Del Re is one of the few senior curators still at the Ottawa gallery following a series of firings and a reshuffling of curatorial staff.
Paul P., “Untitled,” 2011
oil on wove paper, 6” x 9” (National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; purchased 2020 with support of Diana Billes, Toronto; 49043; © Paul P.; photo courtesy NGC)
Del Re enhanced the dreamy, retro feel of the exhibition by pairing many of the works with ones by Whistler, Solomon or other artists of yesteryear that have influenced Paul P.
The exhibition is something of a departure for the gallery, which for decades has offered solo shows primarily to very established artists of advanced age, often shortly before their death. Examples include Christopher Pratt, Alex Colville, Daphne Odjig and Norval Morrisseau. These shows have tended to be large, each spread over several rooms. Paul P.’s show is contained within two small rooms.
Paul P. is in his mid-40s and likely has much time yet for a full-blown retrospective. He is already known in the international art world, although he’s hardly a household name.
Surely, a mark in his favour is that a rich philanthropist helped the gallery acquire his works, which are showing in the same two rooms that six years ago showcased a collection of century-old paintings by James Wilson Morrice, Canada’s first international art star. Those paintings were donated to the gallery by another Toronto philanthropist, Ash Prakash.
It’s refreshing to see a contemporary artist getting a small, but important, solo show at Canada’s leading art institution before he starts collecting a pension. Will there be more? ■
Paul P.: Amor et Mors at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa from Feb. 10 to June 11, 2023.
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