About

Pavol Roskovensky is a painter based in New Haven, Connecticut. Born in Bardejov, Czechoslovakia, in 1986, he immigrated to the United States in 1995. Working across oil painting, drawing, and gouache, he explores how color, gesture, and the physical surface can hold traces of lived experience.

He received his MFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2026, following post-baccalaureate study at Brandeis University and a BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts University. His practice has also included residencies at Vermont Studio Center, Red Gate in Beijing, and ArtStudy in Giverny.

Artist Statement

I think of painting as a record of presence. A brushstroke, a repeated mark, or a passage of color holds something of the time and attention that went into making it. My paintings develop through accumulation and revision: forms emerge, are interrupted, and return altered. Earlier decisions remain visible beneath and alongside new ones.

Having grown up between Czechoslovakia and the United States, I am attentive to the ways memory and belonging shift over time. These experiences enter the work through its construction—divisions, overlapping structures, and gestures that connect or pull apart. I think of the painted surface as something vulnerable, capable of carrying the evidence of change.

I plan the conditions, not the outcome. Color and structure give me a starting point, but the painting develops through looking and responding to what happens on the surface. I want the work to be felt clearly while remaining open to different readings.

Painting offers a place to stay with uncertainty, tenderness, and recognition before they settle into words. I hope the work invites sustained looking: an encounter that changes as the viewer spends time with it.

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