Threnody
Threnody (2015)

SELECTED SOLO AND GROUP SHOWS
Landscape Haas Collective 2021
Group Artvark Kalk Bay 2021
Subsurface Scattering Galery One11 2020
Miscellany Haas Collective 2020
Intaglio Travelling 2020
Birdlife Rust en Vrede 2019

Woordfees 2018
Footprint Biennale 2016
Eclectica Modern 2016
Beyond Skin-Theartbusiness,Piketberg,2012
Portraits-Rust-en-Vrede 2012
Self Portraits -Rust-en-Vrede 2011
Phantasmagoria-Salon 91 2011
Work- KZNSA 2011
phan-tas-ma-goria- KKNK 2011
Solo-Rust-en-Vrede 2011
Stellenbosch Woordfees-2011 (group)
Inprint-travelling 2010(group)
Coppertone-Salon 91 2010 (group)
Print-These Four Walls 2010 (group)
Summershow-iArt 2009 (group)
Recent Work-AVA 2008

Image making has always held a potent and obsessive allure for me,as far back as I can remember I have attempted to map out my understanding of the world and my experiences therein with whatever materials I could lay my hands upon . In a sense it has always dealt with a certain type of assimilation and internalization , an attempt to possess images that have moved , seduced , intrigued and even alarmed me .

Thematically my work has invariably returned to an intensely personal series of responses : central themes include the nature of duality , the complexities of guilt , memory and desire , and the allure of the macabre , the mysterious and the forbidden . The persistence of these themes is allied to a preoccupation with the fringe , with alienation and feelings of dislocation and uncertainty , the paradoxical lure and repulsion of assimilation and integration . At its rawest my work probably stems from these agitated psychological states , and the outsider figure crops up persistently , often in the shape of misfits , criminals and anthropomorphized beings .

My imagery is drawn largely from stocks of my own photographs , cinema, and open source reference such as the internet and  encyclopedias . My current work reflects to some degree an attempt at an exhaustive overhauling of banks of imagery that I have obsessively hoarded over the years , ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous . An attraction toward the grotesque and enigmatic qualifies the work , and reflects a series of personalized and equivocal responses to the ghosts of memory and desire (in all their ambiguities) , notions of individuality and alienation , and a penchant for the offbeat and grotesque . Their dark and often moody narratives are offset by a sense of wry and knowing dark humor , wherein anthropomorphic taxidermied apes square off against burlesque wrestlers , vicious criminals rub shoulders with ersatz dinosaurs :  a phantasmagoria of ill starred misfits .

EXCERPT FROM ROBYN COOK'S REVIEW OF PAUL PAINTING:ETCHINGS AT THE KZNSA

On the upper mezzanine, Paul Painting’s etchings were more engaging. The small-scale, neat collection of images appeared to be from Ma Baker’s personal scrapbook. Infamous Reggie Kray, a pair of buff wrestlers, a group of eerie Vaudevillians and a couple scantily clad in '70s swimwear sit side by side. The images are dark and spine-chilling. Painting leaves it up to the audience to make connections between the characters. Is that Reggie’s Mom and Pop? Did Reggie have a French bulldog called Barthez? A recurring Godzilla character pops its head up at odd places, perhaps a manifestation of the ‘monster’ within. The images are darkly humorous. At once a satire and a set of eerie tragicomic possible narratives. 

And damn, I can’t seem to get Reggie’s mug shot out of my mind.