In a studio in South-East London, Patrick StPaul brings dead things back to life. In a space crammed with the ephemera of death, everything from whalebones to bayonets, bumblebees, road-kill and old shoes, his art is positioned at that delicate tipping point between the beautiful and the macabre. A compulsive collector of dead things, perished things, lost things and discarded things, StPaul cherishes and, through this reverence, transforms the artefacts into art.
StPaul’s objects are more than accumulated relics of death, but rather collectables he is compelled to gather and transform. Things like the aeroplane in the Cairngorms, made from a tail-wing he strapped to his rucksack and an engine cowling he dragged behind on a rope, or the sheep carcass in the Lake District he ignored, later to retrieve in a 700 miled day trip after the vision of the perfectly washed bones would not leave him on his return to London.
The sheep joined the other curiosities that make up StPaul’s uniquely visceral art, a culminated array of sculptures, collages and elegant paintings made from the found objects that preoccupy him, becoming pieces whose beauty defy categorization.
Patrick StPaul will be exhibiting a collection of confused animal specimens at The Other Art Fair, Bargehouse Gallery 24th-27th November. FAD readers can register for a free ticket here.
BIOGRAPHY
Patrick StPaul abandoned a successful career in advertising ten years ago.
He joined a community of artists and musicians in remote Scotland and spent a year living rough in the mountains. During this time StPaul began constructing creatures. Bones found in the hills, old photographs, road-kill and machine parts all came together in creations that were part human, part furniture, all strange.
In 2006 StPaul returned to London to a studio in South London which rapidly overflowed with bric-a-brac and body parts.
Patrick StPaul was born in Hertfordshire in 1962 and brought up in Kent. He studied at Medway and at Exeter College of Art and Design and has lectured at UAL Camberwell, Plymouth, Birmingham Universities.
