Paul Rousso: Abstract Solids

Paul Rousso is a North Carolina-based American artist best known for transforming everyday objects like crumpled currency, candy wrappers, and newspapers into monumental wall sculptures through his signature process called Flat Depth. He earned a BFA from the California College of the Arts, and before dedicating himself fully to fine art, worked as a scenic artist at Warner Brothers and later as an art director in advertising, leading campaigns for Revlon and Condé Nast. That background in pop culture and commercial imagery runs through everything he makes.

The Abstract Solids take the same technical approach and remove everything else.No recognizable imagery, no cultural reference points, nothing to read into. Just large metallic surfaces, hand-sculpted from thermoplastic polyester, each painted in a single bold color. Gold, crimson, cobalt, rose, pearl. What holds these pieces together is the same thing that makes all of Rousso's work worth paying attention to: the surface. Because the material is crumpled and folded by hand, it catches light differently depending on where you're standing. The piece you see from across the room is not the same piece you see up close.

These works hang like paintings but feel like sculpture. Large in scale, physical in presence, and completely stripped back. For collectors who love what Rousso does technically but want something that lives outside of pop culture, the Abstract Solids are the purest version of his practice.