Paul Pagk: Painting and Drawing
Galería Marta Cervera is honored to present in Madrid, on Thursday, September 11th, the first solo exhibition of artist Paul Pagk: Paul Pagk: Painting and Drawing. The exhibition consists of a mix of various formats and media, including works on canvas in different sizes, as well as works on paper.
Paul Pagk’s abstract oils possess a unique and consistent language made up of a color field and a geometric drawing. The oil, with its varied brushwork, profound and softly moving, generates light and vibrant color range. Through a geometric language of hand- drawn lines (freehand) and a gestural abstraction, his work challenges the flatness of the canvas and conveys a dynamic of personal and opposing geometries. Pagk’s work exerts a power of slow and suspended time that demands observation, capable of articulating new elements with a contemporary relevance.
In the larger-format works, background and figure overlap without a clear distinction between them. This sensation increases as the format of the media is reduced and the oil and canvas give way to the transparencies of paper. In contrast to the canvases, the drawings, almost always in the same format, are characterized by their fluidity and spontaneity, using a multiplicity of elements such as graphite, pastel, wash, watercolor, etc.
Paul Pagk was born in Crawley, UK, in 1962. He completed his studies at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France (1978–1982). He currently lives and works in New York. Pagk seeks to articulate notions of time and space. In his own words: "The viewer accesses painting while it remains suspended by the events occurring within it; the original perception of the body and the mind is the starting point for a journey within painting."
His work has been exhibited in institutions such as the Centre d’Arts Plastiques, Royan (2022), Fondation Fernet-Branca, Saint-Louis (2021), and C.R.A.C. Montbéliard (1999), all in France. He has held solo exhibitions at Miguel Abreu Gallery (2023), Galerie Eric Dupont, Paris (2019, 2016, and 2014), Baukunst Galerie, Cologne (2008), Markus Winter, Berlin (2007), CRG Gallery, New York (1995 and 1994), Thread Waxing Space, New York (1993 and 1991), Galerie Jean Fournier, Paris (1987), among others. He has also participated in group exhibitions such as at Galería Marta Cervera, Madrid (2024), Marlborough Gallery, New York (2023), and the Miettinen Collection, Berlin (2020). Pagk is part of permanent collections such as Fonds National d’Art Contemporain (FNAC), Paris; Les Abattoirs, Toulouse; FRAC Picardie, France; Springfield Museum of Art, OH; Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, NH, among others. He has received important awards and grants, including the NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Painting (2018), the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant (2014), and grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation (2012).