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The Photograph-inspired Paintings of Paul Stopforth

by Mia Phillips

Seated on a bench at the Schoolhouse Gallery, Paul Stopforth examines a few of his works on display. He points out the way one subject’s hands fold over each other. The gesture, he explains, is what drew him to paint the piece. Each painting hanging on the wall features a faceless figure, surrounded by color, composed with an intense regard for detail. Each piece takes about 60 hours to complete. “It demands concentration, it demands attention, it demands discipline,” says Stopforth. 

He’s in Provincetown to drop off a collection of new work at the Gallery for an upcoming exhibition, one he feels is indicative of the work he always wants to make. “After having produced a body of work then you sort of think ‘whats next?’ And with these there’s no next,” says Stopforth. The new series features paintings that depict the human body in a variety of situations, yet shrouded in mystery. “I think what’s central in some ways to the work that I do is curiosity,” says Stopforth. 

All of Stopforth’s subjects were first photographed. He found them in photos he took himself, received from friends, or, in some cases, saw in the newspaper. Then, he plucked the person from the image and the fragment became the subject of the painting. “If you don’t see the whole context of something, then a fragment in itself becomes mysterious,” says Stopforth.

Stopforth’s work has always incorporated photographic references. “It’s photography that’s engaged me with the world rather than painting,” says Stopforth.

Stopforth attended art school in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he was taught to look outward at the art worlds of America and England. Professors trained him to replicate traditional still lifes and landscapes—images that evoke a sense of peace and calm. Stopforth, however, aimed to provoke a different reaction. 

Born in South Africa during apartheid, Stopforth was aware from a young age that an injustice was being committed. “I saw Black people being arrested on the streets,” says Stopforth. “They had to carry passports, which documented who they worked for, and if they didn’t have a pass they were assumed to be illegal immigrants and they were shipped off to prison.” While enrolled at art school in Johannesburg, he used visual media to expose the systems of government responsible for enforcing apartheid. His early work wove together imagery of police brutality and the torture of political prisoners. “It wasn’t art that tried to escape reality,” says Stopforth. “It was art that attempted to confront reality.”

During a brief stint with a radical theater group, Stopforth was introduced to anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko. Sometime after their meeting, Biko was arrested and beaten to death by state security officers. Stopforth, through his friendship with the lawyer representing Biko’s family, gained access to the autopsy photos and used them to make a series highlighting the wounds and lacerations on Biko’s body. The black-and-white works gave viewers an up-close look at the violence and barbarism of apartheid systems. 

The Biko series received mixed reactions. The liberal media lauded the series with positive reviews, and the security police opened a file on Stopforth. After the work’s publication, he began to receive phone calls containing death threats. “I just stopped answering the phone,” he says.

Stopforth’s evocative work caught the attention of Tufts University, who offered him the opportunity to be an artist in residence. Unsure if life in South Africa would ever change, Stopforth and his wife made the decision to immigrate to the United States in 1988. Now living in a new country, Stopforth’s work began to represent the experience of existing in two separate places at once. “Although I’m an immigrant, I still feel very connected to South Africa,” says Stopforth. He began to examine the shoreline, likening it to a bridge that connects him to the shores of South Africa. “The breakwater itself became quite an important kind of emblem for me as an immigrant,” says Stopforth. No longer living under apartheid, he allowed his work to take a metaphysical shape. 

Stopforth went on to teach at Harvard University and the Fine Arts Work Center here in Provincetown. As a teacher, Stopforth encouraged students to develop an awareness of the world around them. Rather than teaching how-to, Stopforth wants to interrogate how a student interprets the world. “I start by bringing in very unusual objects,” says Stopforth. “They look at this object and it’s something they’ve never seen before.” Stopforth found success, not from recreating images seen and done before, but by interpreting something that had not yet been represented on canvas before. So, he instructs his students to do the same. “It’s about making people more aware of what’s around them rather than making something that can be taken and framed,” says Stopforth. 

Apart from intermittent weekends spent in Provincetown, teaching at the Fine Arts Work Center has allowed Stopforth to spend more time on the Outer Cape. While in Provincetown, he was introduced to the Schoolhouse Gallery through poet Marie Howe. Over 20 years later, Stopforth has continued to show his work there every two years. It can be difficult to find a gallery to consistently show your work after as many artistic evolutions Stopforth’s work has experienced, but that is what he says makes the gallery so remarkable. 

Paul Stopforth’s work is on view July 3 – 21 at Schoolhouse Gallery, 494 Commercial St., Provincetown. There will be an opening reception on Friday, July 3, 6 – 9 p.m., free and open to the public. For more information call 508.487.4800 or visit galleryschoolhouse.com.