Paul Mpagi Sepuya
Born 1982 • American
Paul Mpagi Sepuya was born in 1982 in San Bernardino, California. He received his BFA from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2004 and his MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2016. Sepuya’s work highlights the constructed nature of the photographic document and the performative space of the photographic studio, embracing the medium’s potentials for fragmentation and connection. In Sepuya’s closeup studies of human forms, subjects are enmeshed in creative, desirous exchanges. In the Darkroom Mirror series (2017), Sepuya positions his camera and tripod in front of a mirror, depicting himself—occasionally accompanied by the limbs of a companion—in the act of taking a photograph. Through revealing his own tools and apparatuses, Sepuya presents artificial, enigmatic scenes that raise questions about the medium’s processes of exposure and concealment, the relationship between surface and depth, and the connection between the lens and the mirror as devices of capture and reflection. The mirrors in Sepuya’s images often bare palimpsestic traces of smudging, disturbing the transparency of the picture plane and heightening the photograph’s tactility. Sepuya’s work also engages with the suggestive, unstable meanings of “darkroom,” which refers to, in the artist’s words, “both the historical origin of the photographer’s craft as well as the privileged yet marginalized site of queer and colored sexuality and socialization.” The personal and the professional collide in Sepuya’s studio, as his subjects are not strictly models but also friends, lovers, peers, and members of the queer community. Such intimate depictions explore complex intersections of desire, collaboration, and creative exchange. They also imagine the studio as a site for expanding the possibilities of queer subjectivity and expression. Sepuya has had solo shows at Franklin Art Works, Minneapolis (2011); Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York (2017); Team Gallery, New York and Los Angeles (2017 and 2019, respectively); Document Gallery, Chicago (2018); and Fotomuseum Amsterdam, Netherlands (2018). His work has been included in numerous group exhibitions at institutions including the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2015); Artist Institute, Hunter College, City University of New York (2016); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2016); New Museum, New York (2017); Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (2018); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2018); and Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2018). Sepuya was awarded the Rema Hort Mann Foundation’s Los Angeles Emerging Artist Grant in 2017. Sepuya lives and works in Los Angeles.
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Paul Mpagi Sepuya
Born 1982 • American
Paul Mpagi Sepuya was born in 1982 in San Bernardino, California. He received his BFA from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2004 and his MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2016. Sepuya’s work highlights the constructed nature of the photographic document and the performative space of the photographic studio, embracing the medium’s potentials for fragmentation and connection. In Sepuya’s closeup studies of human forms, subjects are enmeshed in creative, desirous exchanges. In the Darkroom Mirror series (2017), Sepuya positions his camera and tripod in front of a mirror, depicting himself—occasionally accompanied by the limbs of a companion—in the act of taking a photograph. Through revealing his own tools and apparatuses, Sepuya presents artificial, enigmatic scenes that raise questions about the medium’s processes of exposure and concealment, the relationship between surface and depth, and the connection between the lens and the mirror as devices of capture and reflection. The mirrors in Sepuya’s images often bare palimpsestic traces of smudging, disturbing the transparency of the picture plane and heightening the photograph’s tactility. Sepuya’s work also engages with the suggestive, unstable meanings of “darkroom,” which refers to, in the artist’s words, “both the historical origin of the photographer’s craft as well as the privileged yet marginalized site of queer and colored sexuality and socialization.” The personal and the professional collide in Sepuya’s studio, as his subjects are not strictly models but also friends, lovers, peers, and members of the queer community. Such intimate depictions explore complex intersections of desire, collaboration, and creative exchange. They also imagine the studio as a site for expanding the possibilities of queer subjectivity and expression. Sepuya has had solo shows at Franklin Art Works, Minneapolis (2011); Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York (2017); Team Gallery, New York and Los Angeles (2017 and 2019, respectively); Document Gallery, Chicago (2018); and Fotomuseum Amsterdam, Netherlands (2018). His work has been included in numerous group exhibitions at institutions including the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2015); Artist Institute, Hunter College, City University of New York (2016); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2016); New Museum, New York (2017); Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (2018); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2018); and Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2018). Sepuya was awarded the Rema Hort Mann Foundation’s Los Angeles Emerging Artist Grant in 2017. Sepuya lives and works in Los Angeles.
Learn More
Sign up for a FREE account today!
Sign Up
Digitizing your art collection allows you to access it anywhere around the world.
A computer, tablet, and phone showing the native ArtCollection.io applications.

Available on any device, mac, pc & more

ArtCollection.io is a cloud based solution that gives you access to your collection anywhere you have a secure internet connection. In addition to a beautiful web dashboard, we also provide users with a suite of mobile applications that allow for data synchronization and offline browsing. Feel confident in your ability to access your art collection anywhere around the world at anytime. Download ArtCollection.io today!

App Store button to download iOS application.
Google Play Button to download Android application.