Paul Emmanuel’s practice is centred on approaches to the substance of paint as a pre-loaded, genetic material where marks and surface, pigment, history, place and myth are part of a genetic code of painting as art. Supporting this approach, Paul uses the context of how and where the painting is made to reference broader structures that inform the meaning of its setting, for example animal husbandry, agricultural systems, psychiatry and international interaction.
Paul uses underlying structures and re-presented contexts to erode the boundaries between nature and culture, mind and body. In this context Paul looks to various forms of painting to simulate conditions where art is seen as both a bodily and a natural process: lung disease and 19th century romantic landscape painting, self-portraiture and mental illness, exoticism and attention disorders, animal and human. These aspects contribute to a malleability of the historic ideals of painting in a variety of constructs with different results: psychological, biological, esoteric, etc.
Paul graduated from Goldsmiths College, University of London in Fine Art/Textiles in 1988. He has exhibited widely throughout the UK and internationally including U.S.A, China and Taiwan. Recent solo exhibitions include The Man don't give a F***. Motorcade FlashParade, Bristol, 2012 and Erotographomania. CAST, Hobart, Australia, 2011. In 2011 Paul was awarded the Welsh Artist of the Year Award at St David’s Hall, Cardiff. In 2012 Paul was awarded a Creative Wales Award from Arts Council of Wales.