About Paul Turounet
Contemporary artist Paul Turounet received his MFA in Photography from the Yale University School of Art in 1995. He has been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship and two grants from the Trans-Border Institute. He is most well known for work about the US-Mexico border, which has exhibited across the United States and Mexico.
Turounet is interested in moments. Much of his work frames a liminal space between perception and reality, making use of the tension exposed by this gap. As Turounet's artwork engages so does it disarm. We experience a certain neutrality, as if we hover outside social/political implications the work asks we contemplate.
Our perspective is apt to shift, and we may find ourselves looking with fresh eyes at otherwise charged issues. Something we felt very black and white about becomes grey. To achieve this, Turounet uses different techniques in each project, even within the project to bolster engagement and access. Site specific and “straight” photographs also adapt to become artist’s books or limited edition works. Sculptures and other unique objects also encompass his practice.
Turounet’s 20-year study on the psychology of place between US|MX presents as three chapters. Tierra Brava (Angry Land) exists as a limited edition book and edition fine art prints. Bajo la Luna Verde (Under the Green Moon) exists as a book and select lightboxes. Estamos Buscando A (We're Looking For) began as a site-specific installation, has been adapted into a gallery exhibition installation*, an artist’s book, and custom fragments that reference the larger installations (view more install shots from 2017 MOCA Tucson exhibition).*
Tierra Brava (Angry Land) by Paul Turounet
Estamos Buscando A (We're Looking For) by Paul Turounet
Somewhere Out There, Something Is Happening by Paul Turounet
Evolving projects by Turounet focus closer to home, and turn towards the American landscape. The artist is currently making trips across country to add to an evolving series Somewhere Out There, Something Is Happening, explores the current psychological landscapes of the United States. It takes as subjects sites related to our history, legacy, natural and made-made disasters. The sites of interest embody such sentiments as aspiration and regret. Beautiful and charged, these photographs act as documents or artifacts to moments of reflection that happened in time and place. They offer a window for us to attempt the same. Many of the works shown above were included in a 2-man exhibition, All that remains | Brian Benfer | Paul Turounet and are discussed in further detail in the exhibition text.
Turounet uses his photographs to open possibility for viewers to engage the same emotion and energy he encountered in place. Above is a small sampling of works, each a subchapter-study of a larger set. Gardens of Paradise, shown below, as example is one of these Somewhere. . . chapters. Images are available as limited edition pigment prints; the artist is also producing portfolio books. Each chapter in the Somewhere Out There, Something Is Happening folio books include a title sheet, loose prints, a map, and colophon.
Gardens of Paradise by Paul Turounet
Turounet’s Gardens of Paradise (exhibited at the gallery in 2014) embraces the grit thinly veiled by symbols of vanity and desire. Taken in a section of the Vegas strip bearing the name- Paradise. Companionship is available for a price. Card-snappers compete, passing out cards to anyone whose palms accept them. By dawn, cards litter the street like confetti.
The sensibility of these images is deeply layered. They speak to the hollow promises of lustful desire and private excess, the ethics of the sex trade. Beyond these immediate associations are more subtle implications that unfold when the works are removed from their stigma, including the visual consumption of the nude, the perception of beauty, obsession with youth, and insatiable craving of fantasy. Water in the desert.
