Paolo Arao (born in Manila, Philippines) makes sewn paintings, textile constructions, and site-responsive installations that are rooted in geometric abstraction. Arao mends this lineage of abstraction through the use of textiles; stitching patchworks that explore the elastic nature of queerness and reflects his Filipino heritage. Made with variously sourced fabrics, second-hand clothing, hand woven fibers and weathered canvas, his works resemble flags or quilts, often carrying physical traces of the bodies that wore them.
Arao received his BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and was a participant at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. He has shown his work in numerous group exhibitions nationally and internationally and has presented solo exhibitions at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts (Omaha), the Columbus Museum (Georgia), David B. Smith Gallery (Denver), Morgan Lehman Gallery (New York City), and Western Exhibitions (Chicago).
Residencies include: Monson Arts, MacDowell, Art Omi, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, The Museum of Arts and Design, the Studios at MASS MoCA, Vermont Studio Center, Lower East Side Printshop Keyholder Residency, NARS Foundation, Wassaic Project, BRIC Workspace, Fire Island Artist Residency, and the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Arao’s work has been published in New American Paintings, Maake Magazine, Artmaze, Dovetail, Harper’s Magazine, and Esopus. Paolo Arao is a 2021 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Painting from The New York Foundation for the Arts and a 2023–2024 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grantee. He lives and works in the Catskills in New York.