Jun 24, 2026
Paul P.’s Disappearing Figures
The AGO recently acquired over twenty-five works by the Toronto-based artist
Paul P., Untitled, 2021. Oil on linen, 33 × 24.1 × 2.2 cm. Gift of the artist, Toronto, 2026, AGO.175280. © Paul P. Photo: LF Documentation. 2026/4.
The cornerstone of artist Paul P.’s multivalent practice is the head-and-shoulder portraits he appropriates from underground queer magazines produced during a period bracketed by the beginning of gay liberation in the late 60s, and the advent of the AIDS crisis in the early 80s: an era marked by aesthetic highpoints and provisional freedoms. In the early 2000s, while exploring the collection of the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives (now ArQuives), P. encountered the sustaining repository of source material for what would become an internationally acclaimed practice.
As art historian Kenneth E. Silver writes, “it’s hard not to see his strikingly beautiful paintings of beautiful young men as redemptive, as well as carrying a subversive charge, whereby the sordidness of the porno industry and the tragedy of AIDS are sublimated and transcendent.”
Within the pages of queer zines and erotica circa 1970s he found young men who, to him, radiated a profound sense of heroism, martyrdom, and humanity. For over two decades, his expressive renderings of these models have found a wide and appreciative audience. His work has been broadly exhibited and is held in the collections of major art museums including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Los Angeles County Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the National Gallery of Canada, and the AGO.
Paul P., Untitled, 2023. Watercolour on paper, 8.5 x 20 cm. Purchase, with funds from the Peggy Lownsbrough Fund, Gerald Conway and Kanur Srinivason, and the Marvin Gelber Fund, 2026, 2026/4.© Paul P. Photo: LF Documentation. 2026/4.
Created between 2004 and 2024, twenty-eight paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptures by P. recently entered the AGO Collection. Representing the full range of his practice, the acquisition includes oil and watercolour paintings, drawings in graphite and ink, etchings, and sculptures. “Together, these works trace the development of a practice that has remained deeply invested in queer histories. P.’s deep reading, visual intelligence, and technical acuity cross mediums and genres,” says Adam Welch, Interim Head, Modern & Contemporary Art and Curator, Modern Art at the AGO, who oversaw the acquisition.
Among the twenty-eight works are seven typically sized portraits, some derived from source materials gleaned from P.’s visits to The ArQuives. They are rendered by way of the singular lens through which he views these young men, and informed by his highly personal research of queer history; born in 1977, P. sees himself as a part of a micro-generation whose sexual awareness developed in relative lock-step with the ravages of AIDS. “I assign hero status or make a hagiography for these young men purely because they existed in a particular period of time,” the artist noted in a 2023 interview with Border Crossings. “[They] experienced what I imagine to be a collision between their psychological state and the circumstances of homosexuality when it was still semi-outlawed.”
P.'s works almost exclusively focus on the model’s countenance, magnifying subtleties of their facial expressions and presence, as a dignifying and restorative gesture. Working in oil paint and watercolour, he uses shadows and colour to conjure intimate and ethereal portrayals that differ greatly from their source.
Paul P., Untitled, 2024. Watercolour on paper, 17 x 16 cm. Gift of the artist, Toronto, 2026, AGO.175283.© Paul P. Photo: LF Documentation. 2026/4.
Additionally, P. commands an extensive landscape painting practice. Five of these works are included in the AGO’s recent acquisition. Rooted in art historical reference, they often depict seascapes or solitary figures moving across shorelines. P.’s exhibition Venice, Venice (2008) initiated an exploration of time and place, juxtaposing historic Venice, Italy, known for aesthetic decadence and implicit homoeroticism, and contemporary Venice, California, often associated with freethinking artists and queer subculture. As in his portraits, the subjects of his landscapes are often obscured or abstracted, prompting viewers to focus on the compositional aesthetics within the frame.
As a newly acquired collection, these works are not yet installed and will be on view in the future. Stay tuned to Foyer for more details about their first gallery rotation. In the meantime, learn more about Paul P. and his acclaimed practice in this newly released self-titled monograph.
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