Paul Magi Sepuya crafts pictures that feel as intimate and warm as they do formal and intellectual. His photos do what art does best: Offer an immediate jolt of both recognition and disorientation, and point toward a singular perspective - a voice, a vision. I'm tempted to say they are arresting images, or captivating, but then the involuntary connotations of those adjectives don't seem to fit; better to say that Sepuya creates images that hold you. Images that give pause and invite reflection - not so much like looking in a mirror but very mud like catching someone else, someone you care for, gazing into the mirror.
- Justin Torres, LA Times
Paul Mpagi Sepuya was born in 1982 in San Bernardino, California. He lives and works in Los Angeles. He received his BFA from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2004 and his MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2016. He is an Associate Professor in Media Arts at the University of California San Diego.
Paul Mpagi Sepuya’s recent exhibitions at Galerie Peter Kilchmann include the group show Shifting in our Zurich gallery in 2025, as well as two concurrent solo exhibitions, Push/Pull and Lustrer, held in our Zurich and Paris galleries respectively in 2023. Frieze magazine recognized this double feature as one of Europe’s best exhibitions of the year.
In 2020, Sepuya presented his first solo exhibition at Galerie Peter Kilchmann, showcasing works made between 2017 and 2018 from a range of ongoing projects.
Sepuya has had solo exhibitions at the following international institutions (selection): Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK (2024); Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany (2022); Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha (2020); Contemporary Arts Museum St. Louis, US (2019); Fotomuseum Amsterdam, Netherlands (2018); KMAC Museum, Louisville, US (2017); and MoCA, Los Angeles, US.
His work has been included in numerous group exhibitions, including Barbican Gallery, London, UK (2020); FRAC, Besançon, France (2020); Bass Museum of Art, Miami, US (2019); Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto, Canada (2019); Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, US (2019); the Guggenheim Museum, New York, US (2019); Serpentine Sackler Gallery, London, UK (2019); Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (2018); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2018); Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2018); New Museum, New York (2017); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2016); and The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2015).
Sepuya was an artist-in-residence at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center and received a 2021 Los Angeles Artadia Award.
His work will be presented in two upcoming solo exhibitions at the Sprengel Museum, Hannover, Germany, and Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland, in 2026.
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Daylight Studio Mirror (_DSF2371), 2023
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Twilight Studio (0X5A4176), 2022
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Daylight Studio (0X5A4577), 2022
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Daylight Studio with Garden Cuttings (_DSF0334), 2022
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Daylight Studio (0X5A3506), 2022
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Model Study (0X5A6854), 2022
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Daylight Studio Model Study (0X5A2323), 2022
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Dark Room Studio Mirror (0X5A5515), 2021
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Model Study (0X5A7453), 2021
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Dark Room Model Study (0X5A1728), 2021
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Dark Room Portrait (0X5A3582), 2021
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Dark Room Studio (0X5A5293), 2021
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Studio (0X5A9580), 2020
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Screen (0X5A3785), 2020
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Screen (0X5A3778), 2020
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Figures (0X5A6168), 2019
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Orlando (_1070798), 2019
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Darkroom Mirror (_2220232), 2018
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Mirror Study (0X5A7387), 2018
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Darkroom Mirror (_2210247), 2018
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A Portrait (0X5A1469), 2017
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Paul Mpagi Sepuya
Estalo14th Mercosul Biennial, Porto Alegre, Brazil
27 Mar - 1 Jun 2025In Portuguese – unlike the words 'chasquido' in Spanish and 'snap' in English - the word 'estalo' has a meaning that goes beyond a direct relationship with that gesture. The...Read more -
Shifting
Maja Bajevic, Travis Boyer, Kenrick McFarlane, Fabian Marti, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Tobias Spichtig, Christine StreuliZahnradstrasse 21, Zurich
25 Jan - 29 Mar 2025Shifting Maja Bajevic, Travis Boyer, Kenrick McFarlane, Fabian Marti, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Tobias Spichtig, Christine Streuli January 25 - March 29, 2025 Zahnradstrasse 21, Zurich Galerie Peter Kilchmann is pleased...Read more -
Paul Mpagi Sepuya
ExposureNottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, United Kingdom
27 Jan - 5 May 2024PAUL MPAGI SEPUYA Exposure Nottingham Contemporary Weekday Cross Nottingham NG1 2GB In Spring 2024, Nottingham Contemporary has presented a major monographic exhibition by the Los Angeles-based artist, Paul Mpagi Sepuya...Read more -
Paul Mpagi Sepuya
Push/PullGalerie Peter Kilchmann
Zahnradstrasse, Zurich
10 Jun - 28 Jul 2023Push/Pull is the latest in Sepuya’s project DAYLIGHT STUDIO / DARK ROOM STUDIO (2021 - ongoing), in which his anachronistic take on 19th and early 20th century Western European and...Read more -
Paul Mpagi Sepuya
LustrerGalerie Peter Kilchmann, Paris
3 Jun - 29 Jul 2023Lustrer is the latest in Sepuya’s project DAYLIGHT STUDIO / DARK ROOM STUDIO (2021 - ongoing), in which his anachronistic take on 19th and early 20th century Western European and...Read more -
Paul Mpagi Sepuya
Daylight Studio/Dark Room StudioPHOXXI – Temporary House of Photography, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany
26 Nov 2022 - 26 Feb 2023PAUL MPAGI SEPUYA takes the use of daylight and found tropes and requisites of historical studio photography as concepts setting them in a new context. He began expanding the frame...Read more -
30 Years Anniversary Exhibition
Galerie Peter Kilchmann
Rämistrasse, Zurich
3 Sep - 14 Oct 202230 Years Anniversary Exhibition Rita Ackermann (*1968 Budapest), Francis Alÿs (*1959 Antwerpen), Maja Bajevic (*1967 Sarajevo), Hernan Bas (*1978 Miami), Armin Boehm (*1972 Aachen), Marc Bauer (*1975 Genf), Monica Bonvicini...Read more -
PHOTO 22: Being Human
Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, Australia 29 Apr - 22 May 2022Audiences will be able to explore photography by some of the most acclaimed artists from around the world, with exclusive Australian exhibitions by Gillian Wearing (UK), Paul Mpagi Sepuya (US),...Read more -
Paul Mpagi Sepuya
Broad Street Billboard ProjectThe Hamilton Public Art Project, University of the Arts, Pennsylvania, US
29 Jun - 10 Dec 2021“Studio (0304) (0306) (0310),” for example, involves a matrix of this layered seeing: a studio setup in which the observer actively becomes observant, perceives the photographer dissect space, while mirrors...Read more -
Paul Mpagi Sepuya
Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zahnradstrasse, Zurich 12 Sep - 12 Oct 2020The figures alongside Sepuya are friends, fellow photographers, and others from an intimate circle; those with whom a close connection forms an essential foundation and shared motivation. Out of this...Read more -
Paul Mpagi Sepuya
Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis, US 17 May - 18 Aug 2019Covering multiple periods of Sepuya’s life and career—his first major museum survey—the exhibition reveals a profound intimacy between artist and sitters and reflects personal relationships over the years. Sepuya allows...Read more -
Paul Mpagi Sepuya
Double EnclosureFoam Fotomuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
14 Sep - 18 Nov 2018The exhibition shows a free selection of work from series that Sepuya has developed during the past three years. His photographs often contain fragments or compilations from earlier work, which...Read more
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Paul Mpagi Sepuya: Dark Room A–Z
2024 Read more -
Paul Mpagi Sepuya
Orifice + Aperture, 2022 Edited by TBW Books, Oakland, California Read more -
Paul Mpagi Sepuya
Aperture, 2020 Texts by Wassan Al-Khudhairi, Malik Gaines, Lucy Gallun, Ariel Goldberg, Evan Moffitt & Grace Wales BonnerContemporary Art Museum St. Louis
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Paul Mpagi Sepuya
Studio Work, 2011 Text by Wayne KoestenbaumEdited by Felix Burrichter
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