Written by Natia Ser (Summer Fellow, 2023), this article dives into the contagious curiosity of Artist-in-Residence Paul Peng.
Before I recognized Paul Peng as one of Ox-Bow's Artist-in-Residence, I thought the face that had been showing up at every single campus event, always flashing a smile, belonged to a student who had a genuine and intense curiosity for other people's practice. He would show up to Faculty and Visiting Artist lectures, gripping his sketchbook and scribbling notes down as the presentation unfolded, before eagerly raising his hand to direct thoughtful inquiries to the speaker. It was on another night, while passing by him glued to his laptop in the Old Inn, where he engaged me in conversation filled with fervor despite the hour (math and art at 12 a.m.!), that I knew he was as avid of a speaker as he was a listener. This summer marks Paul's return to Ox-Bow since he first took a class here six years ago—which he fondly recalls as the time he wore a smile "all week long." With the same radiant beam, he sets foot on these grounds again, exerting an energy that illuminates through his countenance to warm everyone he meets. When I called it a night, he waved at me enthusiastically with a peace sign. Classic Paul.
Paul points at his favorite work made during the residency.
The same energy permeates Paul’s art practice. In his Ox-Bow studio, his drawings overflow the walls and his sketchbooks—which he divides between "freak" sketchbooks and "actual" sketchbooks. "But the conditions of these books are the same in terms that there is no pressure in making them," he says as he flips through pages of old and new appearances of his rendition of Dipper from Gravity Falls. Weaving through his illustrations in the space are Risograph prints, collages, and ceramics—it seems that Paul has ventured beyond pencil sketches on paper during his time here.
Paul's favorite work he made during his residency—Dipper reimagined as a Chinese dragon over a magazine cut-out.
Paul has also been dabbling with a new way of mark-making. Covering one of his studio walls are dark, uniformed blobs and strokes that fill up sheets of paper. Bolstered by an interest in religion his whole life and inspired by the tranquil scenery of Ox-Bow that he has been waking up to recently, his latest endeavors involve using Sumi ink to make repetitive marks as a means to study Zen Buddhism. In describing the influences of this meditative practice, Paul recalls one of his favorite Pittsburgh-based artists whose work is informed by the same beliefs, as well as his sister who once commented on how Paul's intuitive, improvisatory approach to his works converges with the Zen Buddhist notion of a beginner's mind. "[Zen Buddhism] really specifically solidified and put language for me and gave me a really wonderful framework for how I wanted to approach my time at Oxbow, which is to just really listen to the surroundings and figure out what I can actually do here. And just reading through the Zen practices, the almost natural conclusion of that line of thought is this practice that's dedicated entirely to not making any discoveries. You're just trying to exist in the most basic sense of that, and the most purest sense of that, and the most expansive sense of that."
After his residency at Ox-Bow, Paul looks forward to returning to Pittsburgh where he will be moving to a new home and, hopefully, turning one of the rooms into a studio.
Influenced by Zen Buddhism, Paul has been experimenting with new ways of mark-making using Sumi ink.
With access to Ox-Bow’s Ceramics Studio, Paul ventured out of his comfort zone to explore other mediums like clay.
Paul attends a faculty lecture at Ox-Bow.
Paul Peng (b. 1994, Allentown, PA; pronounced “Pung”) is a contemporary artist who makes non-representational and cartoon drawings based on what it feels like to be a real person. This feeling comes from his adolescent experience witnessing and participating in an internet-based folk art tradition of sad closeted teens drawing pictures of themselves as anthropomorphic fantasy creatures, anime monster boys, and other cartoons of things that they are not. Paul is currently interested in how his art practice directly extends this tradition: how his work, born from queer teen anguish, exists under conditions where that anguish used to exist but no longer does. Paul graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 2017 with a BCSA in Computer Science and Art, and has also studied classical drawing at Barnstone Studios in Coplay, PA (2013) and experimental drawing right here at Ox-Bow (2017). Alongside his art practice, Paul is a roller coaster enthusiast, a programming language design hobbyist, and an aspiring long-distance runner and competitive DanceDanceRevolution player. He currently lives and works from Pittsburgh, PA.
Photos by Natia Ser (Summer Fellow, 2023).