About Paul Turounet
Contemporary artist Paul Turounet received his MFA in Photography from the Yale University School of Art in 1995. He has been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship and two grants from the Trans-Border Institute. He is most well known for work about the US-Mexico border, which has exhibited across the United States and Mexico. More recent works contemplate the American landscape; Somewhere Out There, Something is Happening began in 2011 and is ongoing.
Turounet is interested in moments. Much of his work frames a liminal space between perception and reality, making use of the tension exposed by this gap. As Turounet's artwork engages so does it disarm. We experience a certain neutrality, as if we hover outside social/political implications the work asks we contemplate.
Our perspective is apt to shift, and we may find ourselves looking with fresh eyes at otherwise charged issues. Something we felt very black and white about becomes grey. To achieve this, Turounet uses different techniques in each project, even within the project to bolster engagement and access. Site specific and “straight” photographs also adapt to become artist’s books or limited edition works. Sculptures and other unique objects also encompass his practice.
Turounet’s 20-year study on the psychology of place between US|MX presents as three chapters. Tierra Brava (Angry Land) exists as a limited edition book and edition fine art prints. Bajo la Luna Verde (Under the Green Moon) exists as a book and select lightboxes. Estamos Buscando A (We're Looking For) began as a site-specific installation, has been adapted into a gallery exhibition installation*, an artist’s book, and custom fragments that reference the larger installations (view more install shots from 2017 MOCA Tucson exhibition).*
Tierra Brava (Angry Land) by Paul Turounet
Estamos Buscando A (We're Looking For) by Paul Turounet
Somewhere Out There, Something Is Happening by Paul Turounet
Somewhere Out There, Something is Happening by Paul Turounet is a sweeping study of the physical places and psychological spaces of the contemporary American social landscape. Rendered as limited edition handmade artist’s books and prints, the work considers our inescapable history and whether what is past is a prologue of something happening now. Below, find a small sampling of works, each a subchapter-study of a larger set.
The artist has completed ten chapters of works belonging to Somewhere Out There, Something is Happening and continues to travel to proliferate the series. This nuanced body of work includes scenes from sites the artist encountered in such settings as the carbon landscape of the Permian Basin, remains of Manzanar War Relocation Camp for Japanese-Americans during World War II, the rolling hills of Wounded Knee in Badlands, memorials for the victims of the Pulse Nightclub shooting, Orlando, and the forest of Philadelphia (MS) where three Civil Rights champions met a tragic fate in 1964.
Harmony coalesces around three main themes: natural resources, land use, as well as climate and climate change; moments in history; and the relationship of place to identity and gender. The sites of interest embody such sentiments as aspiration and regret. Beautiful and charged, this work acts as document or artifact to moments of reflection that happened in time and place. They offer a window for us to attempt the same.
Somewhere Out There, Something is Happening
Artist’s Books
14 x 11 in. Ed. of 6
contents vary by title: 6-12 inkjet photo prints, 5-6 text sheets, reflective statement, map, colophon, index in hand made paper custom clamshell case.
Two of Turounet’s Somewhere Out There, Something is Happening chapters have been the topic of solo-shows. Gardens of Paradise was featured in a gallery exhibition, selection below. Where Wonders Surround You has been featured in an online presentation (2025). Additionally, Turouent’s work was contextualized in a 2-man show, All that remains | Brian Benfer | Paul Turounet. This exhibition surveyed works from across the series.
Gardens of Paradise by Paul Turounet
Turounet’s Gardens of Paradise (exhibited at the gallery in 2014) embraces the grit thinly veiled by symbols of vanity and desire. These frames were taken in a section of the Vegas strip bearing the name- Paradise. Companionship here is available for a price. Card-snappers compete, passing out cards to anyone whose palms accept them. By dawn, cards litter the street like confetti.
The sensibility of these images is deeply layered. They speak to lustful desire and private excess, the hollow promise of companionship, and the ethics of the sex trade. Beyond these immediate associations are other more subtle implications reveal like metaphors when the works float free from the stigma of their location. Among them the visual consumption of the nude, the perception of beauty, obsession with youth, and insatiable craving of fantasy. Water in the desert.
