Credenzas may seem like a standard furnishing in everyone’s living room, but the word itself has an unusual backstory. Centuries ago, the Italian word credenza (“credence” in English) was coined as a measure tied to belief. Essentially, nobility would have their servants sample food at a sideboard in the living room to test for poison.
From an act of faith to a design object, American artist Paul Rouphail used the interesting transformation of a credenza as the theme of a new solo exhibition at Stems Gallery in Paris. The aptly titled show presents a series of new paintings centered around faith, fear and indulgence.
In Credenza (After Carvaggio) and Credenza with Flowers, Rouphail features a reproduction of Carvaggio’s The Incredulity of St. Thomas., where in the former, he replaces the unobtrusiveness of a bouquet with a sex toy. In Man, the Philadelphia-based artist reproduced Gianni Politi’s maquette fountain, altering the figure’s head with a mouth open while masturbating. Whether subtle or perverse, Rouphail uses compositional space and the space in which one interprets history and semiotics to spark new new dialogues to familiar domestic settings.
“Based in the tradition of still-life painting,” wrote a release by Stems, “Paul Rouphail’s canvases subtly undermine their own realism with details reaching just beyond logical comprehension. Rouphail’s works present genre-bending scenes within scenes reminiscent of seventeenth-century European and twentieth-century American landscape painting renewed with psychologically and politically pointed components.”
As his third show with the gallery, Credenza will be on view in Paris until February 10.
Stems Gallery
11 rue Pastourelle
75003 Paris
