Paul-Auguste Richard
was born in 2000 in Paris, he studied photography-video and scenography at the École des Arts Décoratifs in Paris (2019-2024), fine art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2022) and achieved a painting MA at the Royal College of Art in London (2025). His work has been presented in several exhibitions, including Phase at The Latente Space in Chicago (2022), Niveau 1 at the Collège Jean-Baptiste Corot in Le Raincy (2024), Un château de sable sous la paupière at AFTER Project Room in Paris (2024), Chiasmata at Greatorex in London (2025), Defying de oods at Somerset House (2025) , Not With ____, But a Yawn, at Norito gallery in London (2025) and Paradisio verde at MO.CA. in Brescia (2025).
“We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves.” John Berger
Paul-Auguste Richard explores the threshold of perception, where the gaze loosens from what it sees. His work unfolds from a peripheral, distanced vision, that of the passing glance, which moves through without pausing, without coming into contact. It is a distinctly urban gaze, shaped by the built environment and the visual apparatuses that structure it.
At times drawn from images extracted from everyday surroundings, the forms he deploys are chosen for their chromatic and geometric properties. He approaches color as frequency, as a vibratory phenomenon prior to symbolic meaning. The images thus establish a signaletic relation: not mere vehicles of representation, but carriers of intensity.
Suspended between abstraction and the emergence of image, his works hold these two conditions in mutual co-determination; neither ever fully resolves into the other. Abstraction is not an autonomous state, but the moment of an image in withdrawal, a not-yet-image.
Neither figurative nor abstract, the signs he employs are stripped of instrumentality. They form an alternative mimetic language that redirects attention away from clear transmission and toward the rhythmic movement of vision, from line to line.
Within the exhibition space, this distanced mode of seeing is reactivated contextually. Fragmented and repeated, the works are meticulously composed like scores, unfolding according to the measure of the sites they occupy, in spatial counterpoint. Structured by a shared grid, a common framework of reading, the installations resonate across spaces, forming a coherent body: a sequence in variation.
Installation view archive
2025
Metropolis, collective show curated by Jacob Sirkin / Greatorex, 10 Greatorex Street, London, 10.25
Not With ____, But a Yawn, collective show with Jackson Owen and Hongil Yoon curated by Ji Yun Kim/ hosted by Norito gallery, London, 07.2025
Paradisio verde, duo show with Alessandra Risi curated by Francesca Fantoni and Pietro Cattai/ MO.CA, Sale Neoclassiche, Brescia, 07.25
Defying de oods, group show. curated by Douceline Van Caloen/ Somerset House, 06.25
Degree Show, group show/ RCA, Battersea, London, 06.25
Chiasmata, group show curated by John Reno and Douceline Van Caloen/ Greatorex, 10 Greatorex Street, London, 04.25
A Yawn, collective show with Jackson Owen and Hongil Yoon curated by Ji Yun Kim/ RCA, Battersea, London, 03.25
In solidarity with, group show curated by Zina Kamaran/ Hockney gallery, London, 02.25
2024
Entre les seuils, group show curated Anna Labouze & Keimis Henni/ Tour Orion, Montreuil, 12.24
Un château de sable sous la paupière, group show/ AFTER project room, Paris, 11.24
Niveau 1, group show curated by Christophe Herreros/ collège Jean-Baptiste Corot, Le Raincy, 11.24
Impressions parisiennes, solo show: degree show/ ENSAD, Paris, 06.2024
2023
Postal paysage, solo show/ ENSAD, Paris, 12.23
Summer Fun, group show/ Espace Nonono, Tour Orion, Montreuil, 12.23
2022
Phase, group show curated by Henry Galano/ The Latente Space, Chicago, 11.22
Les événements spectaculaires, group show/ Théâtre de l’Aquarium, Vincennes, 05.22
On the other side, group show/ Linda 2, Narva, 03.22
Cyclope en parties dévoilées/ ENSAD, Paris, 01.22
2019
La nuit, group show/ Galerie de l’ENS, Paris, 12.19
Education
Royal College of Art MA Painting 2024-2025
École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Paris major in scenography 2019-2024
School of the Art Intstitute of Chicago 2022
Foundation year at L’atelier de Sèvres 2018-2019
Publications
2025, Paul-Auguste Richard, “On Tom Evans : painting through the face”, “Folk artist of the month, Florence Dock London : (CRITICAL TEXT) 2 pages text
2025, Francesca Fantoni and Pietro Cattai, Moca Centro Per Le Nuove Culture, “Alessandra Risi e Paul-Auguste Richard: Paradiso Verde” : (CONVERSATION)
www.morettocavour.com
2025, Henry Galano, “Intermission: Failing to complete the Tower of Babel” : (POEM) Foreword text
2025, Matilde Sofia Monti and Yuri Wang, “Private View 001, Oil on Canvas” : (POEM) 16 artists from Royal College Of Art
2024, Christophe Lehousse, “Une résidence d’artiste haute en couleurs” : (REVIEW), www.seinesaintdenis.fr
2024, Paul-Auguste Richard, “Impressions parisiennes” : (ARTIST BOOK) 300 days of work through 300 images
2024, Paul-Auguste Richard, ENSAD, “Impressions parisiennes” : (ARTIST PRESENTATION) www.ensad.fr
2023, Paul-Auguste Richard Ceccherelli, “Courir deux lièvres à la fois” : (THESIS) 192 pages, essay on 12 artists and more
2022, Paul-Auguste Richard, “12 poems” : (BOOK), collection of poems
Talk
Middlesex University London 03.26
Royal College of Art London 03.25