Pablo Power works in mixed media on wood panel or stacked sculpture—which Power erects with hand-cut pieces of paper, gel medium, and emulsion of Polaroid—as he mingles studio material with found imagery and objects. Having accrued a massive archive of documentary photography, Power buries photographs under layers including but not limited to paint, pigment, oil-based paint markers, wheatpaste. His paintings mimic sculptural in form. With subversive strokes that interrupt formal representation, Power abstracts figuration, alludes to sexually charged subject matter, and comments on social relationships.

Illuminating grim and the less-than-glamorous, Power portrays an introspective narrative that pervades through textual line in the foreground. Power’s work is comprised of enumerable personal depictions that neither condemn nor commend subject matter. Attuning found objects to formal elements, these objects not only directly signify social constructions, a crack vial supports a shipping tag, they also offer complex implications, juxtaposition of two women’s faces during sex.

Power lives and works in Harlem, New York. Born in Silver Spring, MD, and raised in Miami, FL, Power moved to New York to attend School of Visual Arts, New York, NY. After a year, he decided to pursue photography and left SVA for Brooklyn. Power embraces the culture that his works portray. He admits that his archive has been built by his enjoyable rambles in a side of the city, most don’t see.