PAUL ROG – WHAT MOVES WINDMILLS
Inauguration Thursday 8 January
January 8 – February 4, 2026
Candy Snake Gallery, via degli Orombelli 15, Milano
Candy Snake Gallery is pleased to present What Moves Windmills, a solo exhibition by Paul Rog, curated by Leonardo Regano.
Loosely inspired by the figure of Don Quixote, the exhibition explores the unstable boundary between truth and fiction, reality and imagination. As Regano writes, in Rog's paintings, "architecture, figures, and landscapes open themselves to a multitude of interpretations and invite us to linger in a state of suspension, where truth and fiction coexist."
In his works, architecture, figure, and landscape coexist in a timeless space, where past, present, and possible future overlap. Medieval mills and contemporary wind turbines become recurring elements, visual devices through which the artist reflects on the persistence of memory and the continuity of human gestures throughout history. Rog's painting thus constructs images grounded in a temporal stratification, in which, as the curator observes, "what is and what should have been" coexist in the same pictorial space.
At the heart of the project is a constant duality: technology and myth, progress and archaism, human fragility and monumentality of form. Architecture takes on a central role as a witness to time, capable of condensing different eras and transforming anachronism, to use Regano's words, "from error to revelation."
The question that runs through the entire exhibition remains open: what drives man and the structures he creates? In Paul Rog's paintings, painting becomes the locus where this tension can exist, a space where reality and imagination are not mutually exclusive, but mutually reinforcing.
Paul Rog (1995) lives and works in France. He uses a traditional oil technique, developing the principles of classical painting in a contemporary context. In his works, architecture, figures, and nature coexist in a timeless space, inviting reflection on memory, cultural continuity, and historical transformation.
He has exhibited in international galleries and institutions in Europe and the United States. In 2025, he won the The Bank Foundation Prize for Contemporary Painting at ArtVerona.
