I grew up in a working-class environment where little was spoken and emotions were rarely expressed. That sense of things being held back or buried continues to shape my work. Making becomes a way of uncovering something — of testing what might emerge through process and material. I’m interested in what sits beneath the surface, what is hidden, suppressed or only partially understood.
Working across painting, sculpture and text-based pieces, I use found materials and everyday surfaces — worn board, salvaged card, primed cardboard. Through cutting, carving and building into the surface, reliefs, folds and ridges begin to emerge. The material shifts and breaks, holding traces of pressure and change.
I think about the movement of land, rivers and seas, and how these physical processes echo internal states. The work becomes a kind of landscape, shaped by tension, disruption, fragility and resilience.
Language is treated as material in the same way. Words are embedded, built over and half-buried in the surface — present but not quite readable, familiar but estranged. My background in type design informs how I think about letterform and structure, and raising my autistic son has deepened my attention to how meaning shifts, slips and is sometimes lost between people. The text-based works grow from the same place as everything else: the attempt to say something that resists being said.
Across the work, I return to repetition, memory and the attempt to make sense of experience through making.
Paul studied Fine Art at the University of Wales and Printmaking and Design at Pratt New York. He received an MA in Psychoanalytic Studies from the Tavistock London and an MA in Fine Art with Teaching and Learning from Kingston University London (2015). He is presently based in Surrey, UK.
Selected Shows and Events SnailMail LDN – NYC with DB Barrett, 2026 / HomeRun AOR15 @Studio Rosinal UK, 2026 / ALAAC with Ben Brown on RTM.FM TACO London UK, 2025 / Downtown @Vaults, London UK, 2025 / Boot Poets @Carpool with Ben Brown and the icing room – spoken word – London UK, 2025 / Silo @Studio Rosinal UK, 2025 / Entrancement @Electro Studios Hastings UK, 2024 / Rose + Fell @Terrace Gallery London UK, 2024 / It will change @Tolworth Tower Space London UK, 2024 / Curve @Manor Wall Studios UK, 2023 / Wild Thought @Lido Margate UK, 2023 / Slide AOR12 @Watts Gallery Compton UK, 2023 / New York International Print Show MGC New York USA, 2022 / Lucky Devils @Asylum with Ben Brown and Ziad Nagy UK, 2022 / This Ends Here @Tolworth Tower Space London UK, 2021 / K.O.P intro with La Petite Mort TACO – spoken word – UK, 2021 / Hard Rain @SET Dalston London UK (solo), 2019 / A522 Publication London UK, 2019 / Scissor AOR8 @Cass Sculpture Sussex UK, 2019 / Test Strip @Museum of Futures London UK, 2019 / Proof Print @Neo Gallery Manchester UK, 2018 / My Xerox Works @A42D Publication SET Alscot Road London UK, 2018 / Et Tu Brute? Andrew Edlin Gallery New York USA, 2018 / Print City + V&A Mini Print Show London UK, 2017 / LSI Showcase Camden Arts Centre Artists’ Studio London UK, 2017 / Folkestone is an Art School project @Folkestone Triennial UK – with Bob and Roberta Smith, 2017 / Creekside Open APT Gallery London UK – selected by Alison Wilding, 2017 / LSI Residency @Camden Arts Centre + Slade Research Centre London UK, 2017 / Power & Politics @Shape Ecology Pavilion London UK – selected by Yinka Shonibare, 2017 / The Ibero-American Art Award London UK, 2016 / Blind Plural @HYG London UK, 2016 / Signals @11.15 Space with Jeni Johnson, Folkestone UK, 2016 / Show Business @Stanley Picker Gallery London UK – curated by Isobel Harbison, 2015 / BAGT @Artworks Project Space London UK – selected by Jonathan Baldock + Paul Johnson, 2015 / Making an Impression Publication PMC London UK, 2015 / Flat White Wall Machine @XMarks the Bokship + Matt’s Gallery London UK, 2015 / PMC @Barbican Centre London 2015 / Metamorphosis, Platform Space London UK – curated by Tom Morton, 2015 / Pony Box @Stanley Picker Gallery London UK, 2015.