Nonchaloir

“The faces are rendered carefully and deliberately, with each beautiful feature and gauche flaw carefully observed, like those of Caravaggio’s punk-angels.” —The New York Times Young artist Paul P. has become internationally known for his haunting paintings and drawings of the faces and figures of young men, all sourced from pre-AIDS gay magazines. The artist mines this huge archive of figures and reimagines these young men with the aesthetic vocabulary of late nineteenth-century art. Nonchaloir, the artist’s first monograph, collects over 100 of these stunning portraits in a small, intimate volume. P.’s subjects and their poses, at times languishing, wistful, or weary, are imbued with references to famed painters James McNeil Whistler and John Singer Sargent. Even the title itself is referential: nonchaloir is a defunct French word suggesting repose and resignation, and is found in works by Mallarmé and Baudelaire. Nonchaloir, printed in a limited first edition run of 2,000 copies, comprises an achingly romantic and sublimely heartbreaking journey through eras now long gone, all the while venerating history and beauty.