Paul Verdell – Black Rock Senegal

Library Street Collective is pleased to present Paul Verdell’s “Masses,” a new body of work that was born out of the ocean view from the artist’s studio window at Black Rock Senegal, the artist-in-residence program founded by Kehinde Wiley in Dakar, where Verdell spent a month this past fall.

The “Masses” imbue oil stick and pastel in an attempt to capture the movement of the sea’s waves. Expanding his expressive, intuitive approach to art, Verdell collages and tears apart his paper foundations, forging unique and raw shapes that allude to the natural characteristics of the land and sea in Senegal. Further, the colors are reminiscent of sunsets off the coast of which Verdell was a daily witness.⁠

Instinctively, mental landscapes have become the embodiment of Verdell’s creations. Living in his early thirties, the artist has increasingly found himself reflecting on the connotations that land carries in relation to his identity and to Black American heritage—“the ownership of it, the decay of it, and its promise.” He visualizes fields of color and how they would form upon a surface, primarily focusing on the horizon line where heaven and earth meet. Rather than relying on visual references in- and outside of the studio, Verdell looks inward to capture fleeting memories to guide the paintings’ fruition.