Jack Barrett presents Hammer, a solo exhibition of oil paintings by Philadelphia and West Virginia-based artist, Paul Rouphail. In his latest body of work, Rouphail masterfully interlaces the traditions of still-life and landscape painting, combining elements and techniques suggestive of a number of genres: the Hudson River School, American Regionalism, and European Surrealism.

Echoing Hermin Melville’s 1859 poem “The Portent,” Rouphail’s paintings conjure the image of John Brown, the American abolitionist famously tried for treason and hanged for the raid of the US armory at Harpers Ferry. In several works, Rouphail references Brown explicitly by inserting historical depictions of the abolitionist into his still-lifes, such as John Stueuart Curry’s 1939 painting titled John Brown, or Horrace Pippin’s 1942 painting John Brown Going to His Hanging. But as in Melville’s poem, Rouphail also evokes Brown through prosopopoeia––a literary device in which an abstract thing is personified––and…