I’m Paul Rizzo, a painter and sketchbook keeper based in Provincetown, Massachusetts. My work draws from a tapestry of influences 70s and early 80s gay porn, portraiture, abstraction, houses, and text all woven together by a deep sense of nostalgia. It’s a nostalgia not only for a time I experienced but also for eras I never truly lived through, especially the shimmer of old Hollywood and the vibrant spirit of the 1970s.
Painting, for me, is a process of immersion. I find a kind of meditation in the act of making documenting fragments of memory, exploring form and color, and surrendering to the unfolding of the work itself. It’s not only about capturing an image but about embracing the layered experience of creation, where history and personal memory quietly converse on the canvas.
