My work explores ideas surrounding repetition, transformation, memory, and the physical and mental processes involved in the production of art objects. My practice encompasses a wide range of media, from painting and drawing to text and video. In my recent paintings, simple actions and patterns are repeated over and over again, imbuing something otherwise simple or banal with metaphysical or transcendental associations. In an earlier work, Untitled (Drawing), an entire gallery space, ceiling, walls, and floor, was lined with paper and a rubbing made of charcoal, transforming the space into a scale negative drawing of itself | ![]() |
Paul Harper
Paul Harper, Death Jukebox, 2008. Jukebox, ink-jet prints, dimensions variable. Collaboration with Andrea Heller. Installation view, CAN, Neuchatel. Courtesy of the artist.
My work explores ideas surrounding repetition, transformation, memory, and the physical and mental processes involved in the production of art objects. My practice encompasses a wide range of media, from painting and drawing to text and video.
In my recent paintings, simple actions and patterns are repeated over and over again, imbuing something otherwise simple or banal with metaphysical or transcendental associations. In an earlier work, Untitled (Drawing), an entire gallery space, ceiling, walls, and floor, was lined with paper and a rubbing made of charcoal, transforming the space into a scale negative drawing of itself. The white cube becomes a black box, and the inconsistencies in the walls, the scars left from previous exhibitions and occupants, are made visible again.
The ongoing Dream Works series consists of representations of art objects that have existed fleetingly in my dreams. The resulting images become an unstable halfway point between the objects as they were initially generated by my unconsciousness during sleep, subject to evaporation, and decay on waking; and the real three-dimensional objects themselves that do not exist, either.
I frequently work with other artists in order to produce work. Recent collaborations include a series of short films with Clare Goodwin, and Death Jukebox with Andrea Heller. For this project we employed a clairvoyant to contact ten people who were associated with the music industry (rock stars, writers, etc.) to find out what each of their current top ten albums were, then shown in a jukebox alongside documentation provided by the medium.