CENTAURS ON THE BEACH, an exhibition of new work by Paul P., presented by Maureen Paley at Morena di Luna in Hove—just outside of Brighton—is on view by appointment only.

The ongoing body of portraits that define much of Paul P.’s practice originate in the pages of erotic gay magazines produced in the years bracketed by the advent of gay liberation and the beginning of the AIDS crisis; a period of tenuous, provisional freedom. He takes the explicit materials of desire from recent queer history and uses them to consider broader historical representations of homosexual desire: a veiled language, springing from subtlety and innuendo in which beauty, often in the guise of mythological creatures and gods, found safe passage in eras of criminalization. From their original position in time the portraits look back to the transient wellsprings of queer aesthetics, and forward to future liberties and tragedies, wherein aesthetic energy loses and regains its unruly value.*

PAUL P.—CENTAURS ON THE BEACH*

Through August 16.

Saturday and Sunday, from noon to 6 pm.

Morena di Luna

3 Adelaide Crescent, Hove.

Paul P., Centaurs on the Beach, Morena di Luna, Hove, March 21–May 10, 2020, from top: Untitled, 2017, oil on canvas; Untitled, 2014, oil on canvas; Untitled, 2018, oil on canvas; Untitled, 2015, oil on linen; Untitled, 2018, oil on canvas; Untitled, 2019, oil on linen; Untitled, 2019, oil on linen; Untitled, 2018, oil on canvas; Untitled, 2019, oil on linen; Untitled, 2019, oil on linen; Untitled, 2010, oil on canvas; Untitled, 2019, oil on linen. Images courtesy and © the artist and Maureen Paley, London.