Paul Rousso

Paul Rousso - Donald Duck September 1949 Vol. 9

Technique: Mixed technique on polystyrene modeled by hand.

Artist Biography: Paul Rousso is an American artist who was born in North Carolina in 1958 and trained at Ohio's Cleveland Institute of Art and California College of the Arts in 1981. His work is based on creating volumes from a flat surface, what he calls "Flat Depth", using complex artistic techniques including painting, printing, digital manipulation, digital printing and hand modeling with heat, to turn two-dimensional objects into three-dimensional objects. Rousso takes pop culture and its inherently contradictory sensibilities, such as money, candy wrappers or magazine pages, and turns them into large format artworks. He seeks satire in inflating their size to unusual dimensions, creating a crumpled three-dimensional appearance of these objects. Rousso's work has been exhibited in numerous galleries, fairs and art centers in the United States and Europe, and he has been commissioned by institutions and public authorities to create large-scale pieces in public spaces.Before devoting himself fully to his artistic career, Rousso worked in advertising and set design, and was a set painter for Warner Brothers films. Later, he worked as an art director for companies in the fashion and luxury world, such as Revlon, Clairol, Condé Nast and Bloomingdale's.Rousso's work is an extension of design and media advertising printmaking, matching many of the assumptions of American PopArt of the 1960s, which made the objects of consumer society the icons of modern life. With his "Flat Depth" technique, Rousso seeks to subvert and transform everyday objects into something new and surprising. Rousso's work can be found in numerous private collections in North America, Europe and the Middle East, as well as in numerous public projects in different parts of the United States.