bio
Paul Aho was the first recipient of the Palm Beach County Cultural Council’s Ubertalli Award for Artistic Achievement and is a two-time recipient of the South Florida Cultural Consortium’s Visual and Media Artists Fellowship. In 2010 he was also awarded an individual artist’s fellowship from The Santo Foundation through an international call to artists. Aho graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Florida State University, Tallahassee, in 1977 and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of South Florida, Tampa in 1979.
Aho has held administrative positions as chief program officer for Palm Beach Photographic Centre; dean of the School of Art at the Armory Art Center; and North American sales representative for International Fine Arts Expositions. He has also served as director of visual art services and public art programs for the Palm Beach County Cultural Council, and as an adjunct professor of art at Florida Atlantic University and Palm Beach Community College. After 6 years as dean of West Kentucky Community and Technical College's Paducah School of Art and Design, he now serves as director.
Solo exhibitions include Dreaming Out Loud, Shrode Art Center, Cedarhurst Center for the Arts, Mt. Vernon, Il, 2014; From There to Here, Jefferson Street Studios, Paducah, 2011; Paul Aho: Recent Works, Martin County Cultural Center, Martin County, Florida, 2010; and Here and Now, Present Global Fine Art, West Palm Beach, 2009.
Group or juried exhibitions include Gallery Biba, Worth Avenue, Palm Beach, Florida; Naples Philharmonic Center for the Arts, Naples, Florida; the 59th Annual All Florida Juried Competition, Boca Raton Museum of Art; Inaugural 2008, Cuadro Gallery, Dubai, U.A.E.; Undertow: A Survey of South Florida Contemporary Art, Istanbul, Turkey; Legacy, Sioux City Art Center, Sioux City, Iowa; Art Futures, Gallery Center, Boca Raton, Florida; The Bridge Art Fair, Miami Beach, Florida; New American Talent, Laguna Gloria Museum of Art, Austin, Texas; Select, Schmidt Center Gallery, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton; Norte Americanos, Arcaute Arte Contemporaneo, San Pedro Garza Garcia, Mexico; The Impossibility of..., Mark Shulgasser Photo Gallery, West Palm Beach; and Paul Aho and Immi Storrs, Clarke Galleries, Stowe, Vermont.
Gallery representation includes Gallery Biba, Worth Avenue, Palm Beach, Fl; Brinkerhoff & Co Fine Art, Coconut Creek, Fl; Wright Gallery, Northport, MI; and Modern Arts Midtown, Omaha, NE. His work is in the permanent collections of Sioux City Art Center, IA; Mandarin Hotel, Miami, FL; MGM Mirage, Las Vegas; Suki Art Fund, Houston, TX; Hyatt Regency Aruba Resort and Casino, and Four Seasons Hotel and Resort, Marrakech, among dozens of others. Representation for corporate and individual clients includes Soho Myriad, Atlanta; BostonArt, Boston; Kalisher, Carrboro, NC; and Kinzelman Art Consultants, Houston, among other leaders in the field.
An avid surfer since the age of 11, Aho curated the exhibition and authored the book, Surfing Florida–A Photographic History, developed through University Galleries at Florida Atlantic University (FAU). The project, documenting the history of surfing in the state and the impact its surfers and surf industry have had on the sport's international development, opened at FAU in March of 2012. It traveled the state to Pensacola Museum of Art, Pensacola, FL; Surf Expo, Orlando, FL; and Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville. FL. The exhibition is now the property of Palm Beach County Surf History Project, and University Press of Florida published a significantly expanded version of the exhibition's extensive research with a book of the same name, Surfing Florida: A Photographic History.