We are pleased to revisit early work by Paul Turounet on the 25 year anniversary of its creation. The San Diego based artist was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in 1997 that supported his work Tierra Brava, a project that marked a changing point in the contemporary artist’s career and seeded the interests that still drive him today. This photographic work marked a dedication to the practice of making that separated him from the life he had built for himself in search of exploring the unknown.
Tierra Brava exists as photographs and a handmade limited edition artist’s book. The project traverses a personal psychological space within the color of a place mired in contradictions; the U.S. – Mexico border. Here, one story brushes against others, revealing only glimpses of any, and like tiny pieces of a broken mirror, we see only ourself staring back in every shard. Through Turounet’s work we discover surprises. We feel at once displaced from our sense of self and grounded in our own path. Like us, the border is a place that is in a constant search for its own sense of identity. We are all migrating through life, sharing space, having gotten this far by clinging to belief in a better tomorrow.
Tierra Brava set in motion a 20 year study on the psychology of place between the United States and Mexico; it was followed by two more related oeuvre about the US|MX border: Bajo La Luna Verde and Estamos Buscando A. As with Tierra Brava, there are various aspects and iterations of these later works, photographs, artist’s books, sculptures, site specific and gallery adapted installations among them.
Turounet continues to contemplate the complexities of our human condition in more recent work. He has spent the last decade investigating sites across the United States where trauma has occurred; broken into chapters by place, the evolving body is called Somewhere Out There Something is Happening.
Estamos Buscando A : Paris Photo Aperture Foundation
Paul Turounet Exhibition at MOCA Tucson
Paul Turounet in Trans Border Biennale : El Paso + Juarez
Paul Turounet: Ambiguities of Intention