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Paul Sepuya

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(Redirected from Paul Mpagi Sepuya) American photographer and artist
Paul Mpagi Sepuya
Born1982
San Bernardino, California, U.S.
EducationTisch School of the Arts
New York University
UCLA
Known forPortraiture
MovementContemporary Studio Portraiture

Paul Mpagi Sepuya (born 1982) is an American photographer and artist. His photographic work focuses heavily on the relationship between artist and subject, often exploring the nude in relation to the intimacy of studio photography. Portraiture is the foundation of Sepuya's work.

Early life

Sepuya was born in San Bernardino, California. He received a Bachelor in Fine Arts in Photography & Imaging from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in 2004 and a Master of Fine Arts in Photography from the UCLA Department of Art in 2016. His master's thesis work was presented at the UCLA MFA Exhibition #3.

Style

Sepuya is known for his portraiture. Fragmentation is a major feature of his work; he often depicts his subjects in fragments—torsos, arms, legs, or feet—rather than showing the entire body. Sepuya's photographs are sometimes ripped apart and rearranged. His work shows his interest in the history of portraiture. He often photographs in his own or a friend's studio.


Career

Sepuya's series Studio Work (2010–11) reflects his interest in portraiture and the intimacy between sitter and photographer in a studio environment. His work examines the subject's personality and character, as well as the "private performance that exists within the photographic studio". Sepuya has stated, "My studio was private, but not a closed environment. Rather, it was a stage that I inhabited and opened to those around me," reflecting on the studio environment and his subjects. He draws inspiration from the works of Robert Mapplethorpe and art historian and critic Brian O'Doherty. He has been an artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem, and his work is in the collection of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art.

Sepuya has published artist's books and editions with Printed Matter, Inc. Since 2004, he has shot editorial features for publications including I.D., Kaiserin Magazine, and Butt. He self-published the periodical Shoot starting in 2005. In 2010, he co-created the publication The Accidental Egyptian and Occidental Arrangements with artist Timothy Hull.

Sepuya's work has been exhibited at venues including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Franklin Art Works, Minneapolis, the Artist Institute in New York, and The Center for Photography at Woodstock. He has had solo exhibitions at venues such as Ducument, the Platform Centre for Photography and Digital Arts in Winnipeg, the Clough-Hanson Gallery at Rhodes College in Memphis, Artspeak in Vancouver, and the Blaffer Art Museum in Houston. He is represented by DOCUMENT, Chicago; Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York; and Stevenson, Cape Town.

As of 2024, Sepuya is Associate Professor in Media Arts and MFA program director at the University of California, San Diego. He previously taught at CalArts and Bard College. Four of his photographs are held in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and he was included in its Spring 2018 exhibition New Photography. In 2018, he was represented by Team Gallery, where his solo exhibition The Conditions debuted in March 2019. Sepuya's work was included in the 79th Whitney Biennial in 2019. His Darkroom Mirror (_2070386) (detail), 2017, from the series "Darkroom Mirrors," was featured on the cover of the March 2019 issue of Artforum.

Critical reception

Critics have noted Sepuya's use of fragmentation in his portraiture. A contributor to The Brooklyn Rail discussed Sepuya's Mirror Study (2016), writing about how "the photographer captures himself photographing a cut-up portrait of a man taped to a mirror, hiding the camera and all but his arms behind what remains of the printed image". An art critic in The Nation wrote that Sepuya's photographs "almost too perfectly encapsulate the current tendency to see photography as a game of mirrors" and that his "conceptually self-questioning strategies and fastidious-almost-to-the-point-of-finicky aesthetics account, in part, for why he seems to be a must-have artist of the moment".

See also

References

  1. "BIO & CV | PAUL MPAGI SEPUYA". paulsepuya.com. Retrieved 2017-10-26.
  2. "Paul Mpagi Sepuya | Artspeak".
  3. "UCLA Arts: School of the Arts and Architecture". UCLA Arts: School of the Arts and Architecture. Retrieved 2017-06-22.
  4. ^ "Paul Mpagi Sepuya - Artists - Yancey Richardson". www.yanceyrichardson.com. Retrieved 2017-11-01.
  5. "Paul Mpagi Sepuya".
  6. "Paul Mpagi Sepuya".
  7. Greenberger, Alex (2018-02-12). "Team Gallery Now Represents Paul Mpagi Sepuya". ARTnews. Retrieved 2018-07-01.
  8. "Talent: Paul Mpagi Sepuya". CULT. Retrieved 2017-06-22.
  9. O'Doherty, Brian (2007). Studio and Cube. New York City: Princeton Architectural Press. p. 40. ISBN 9781883584443.
  10. Schwabsky, Barry (22 May 2017). "Playing with Mirrors: Two artists push the limits of what cameras can do". The Nation: 42.
  11. SHOOT Magazine
  12. Smyth, Diane (October 2010). "The art of photography". The British Journal of Photography.
  13. "Paul Mpagi Sepuya - Artists - Yancey Richardson". www.yanceyrichardson.com. Retrieved 2017-06-22.
  14. "Paul Mpagi Sepuya at DOCUMENT". www.artforum.com. 26 April 2018. Retrieved 2018-07-01.
  15. "Studio Work | Platform Centre". platformgallery.org. Retrieved 2018-07-01.
  16. "Paul Mpagi Sepuya | Blaffer Art Museum". blafferartmuseum.org. Retrieved 2020-06-13.
  17. "Paul Mpagi Sepuya". visarts.ucsd.edu. Retrieved 2024-12-23.
  18. "Paul Sepuya". art.calarts.edu. Retrieved 2017-06-22.
  19. "People". www.bard.edu. Retrieved 2024-12-23.
  20. "Paul Mpagi Sepuya", Art and Artists, MoMA, retrieved 2017-10-10
  21. Greenberger, Alex (2018-02-12). "Team Gallery Now Represents Paul Mpagi Sepuya". ARTnews. Retrieved 2018-02-24.
  22. "DPI Alum Paul Mpagi Sepuya to lecture at ICP and more". tisch.nyu.edu. Retrieved 2019-03-02.
  23. "Artist List for 2019 Whitney Biennial Includes Wangechi Mutu, Simone Leigh, Brendan Fernandes, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Jennifer Packer, and Martine Syms". 27 February 2019. Retrieved 2019-03-02.
  24. "PROJECT: PAUL MPAGI SEPUYA". www.artforum.com. March 2019. Retrieved 2019-03-02.
  25. "Figures, Grounds, and Studies". March 2017. Retrieved 7 February 2018.
  26. "Mirror Study (_Q5A2097), 2016". Retrieved 7 February 2018.
  27. Schwabsky, Barry (2 May 2017). "Playing With Mirrors Two. Artists push the limits of what cameras can do". Retrieved 7 February 2018. {{cite magazine}}: Cite magazine requires |magazine= (help)

External links

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