Paul Prothesis: Containment & Desire in the Leaking Body

“The body I work with is male and wounded. It is amputated and unstable. It hurts, leaks, scabs, and contaminates its surroundings. It suffers repression because of its fluidity. It remains in need of expression”.

Paul Prothesis (he/him) is a pseudonym and functions as a necessary, provisional body that gives artistic expression to personal experiences of caregiving, queer self-care, and the identity-forming effect of bodily fluids. Paul Prothesis works through, with, for, and against an injured and vulnerable masculinity. At the center of this artistic exploration are bodily constructions and overwritings that are transferred from the injuries of the cared-for body to the social body of the caregiver. Part of these transformational processes are the shifts in societal notions and implications of masculinity–brought about by care work, in which both the caregiver and the patient are marked as queer–Queer(ed) through Caring.

Paul Prothesis lives and works in Vienna and in southern Burgenland. He has been caring for his father since 1985 following a work-related accident. Since 2014, he has been engaged in ongoing artistic work based on this experience. The Paul Prothesis construct has existed since 2021. From 2021 to 2025, Prothesis studied Contextual Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts with Ashley Hans Scheirl and Alice Kreischer & Andreas Siekmann. Since 2025, he has been studying Health Care and Nursing at Campus Wien University of Applied Sciences.

Andrea Kopranovic is a curator and writer. She studied art history and English and American studies at Paris Lodron University Salzburg, and architecture theory and philosophy of technics (ATTP) at the Vienna University of Technology. Since 2022, she has been working as assistant curator of contemporary art at Belvedere 21, where she has contributed to the following exhibitions, among others: Ashley Hans Scheirl. In & Out of Painting* (2025), Monster Chetwynd. Moths, Bats and Velvet Worms! Moths, Bats and Heretics! (2024), Kazuko Miyamoto (2024), On the New. Viennese Scenes and Beyond (2023), and Public Matters. Contemporary Art in the Belvedere Garden (2023). From 2016 to 2021, she was Associate Director of Christine König Gallery in Vienna. She was a co-teacher at the Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts and a lecturer at the Vienna University of Technology.