“There are many shades from one end of the spectrum to the other, but everything has an opposite. My work is about finding what comes next.” Paul Rousso, a native of Charlotte, North Carolina, was born in 1958. He attended the Cleveland Institute of Art in Ohio before being sidelined by a too-close encounter with a power saw. Rousso’s period of convalescence turned into a months-long stint in New York City, where he found work as a member of an interior design team drawing plans for the home of Robert De Niro. After completing his B.F.A. in 1981 at California College of the Arts in Oakland, California, Rousso worked at Warner Brothers as a scenic painter for films. He went on to serve as an art director and illustrator for Revlon, Clairol, Condé Nast, and Bloomingdale’s before becoming a full-time artist. Paul Rousso creates works that embody discernible items from consumer goods to mainstream media on an exaggerated scale, underscoring those on the verge of obsoletion such as paper currency, print advertising, newspapers, and magazines. Using heat infusion on acrylic, Rousso molds his subject matter into dynamic sculptures, mixing the opposing worlds of the flat and dimensional, thereby giving these objects new life. With influences ranging from the New York Times to Campbell's Soup Can, he explores the theoretical limits of art and art history, converging traditional and modern textures, yet highlighting their unrelenting divergence in meaning.