Antonio Puri

Antonio Puri: Contrast

Antonio Puri creates paintings in series, examining both personal subjects and broad philosophical issues. Puri has an inquisitive mind, one that is seemingly a cross between alchemist and philosopher. In his paintings, he is as apt to explore far-reaching social or spiritual issues as personal biography. Yet, viewers need not know his intensions, which are often indicated by concise titles, in order to appreciate his work. He produces paintings in various scales utilizing a wide range of media, from acrylic paints and resins to collage with paper and other materials. While all of his images are abstractly conceived, some are completely non-objective. Others include obscured representations. Moreover, he composes with both geometric and biomorphic forms. The complexity and diversity of Puri’s output represents the expansive approach of the twenty-first century artist.

This particular exhibition includes work from a number of different series, an especially insightful installation as it hints at Puri’s extensive production. What also becomes clear when examining these paintings is not only his work ethic, but also the wide range of his interests and the depth of his intellect. Puri is an artist philosopher—an explorer of big universal themes like birth and death, the role of the artist in modern society, and the positions that we hold as children and parents. Indeed, he is himself a child of the world, an internationally shaped individual whose education and artistic ideas are the products of east and west.

For instance, in his series of small paintings entitled Bardo, Puri produced twelve works on the theme of the afterlife. The term “bardo” is Tibetan for what is described as an in-between state connecting life and death. It comes from the Bardo Thodal, the Tibetan funerary text known in the west as The Book of the Dead; its purpose is to serve as a guide through the interval between death and subsequent rebirth. The paintings, created in acrylic with thick resin surfaces, suggest a kind of dream place as described through biomorphic grey, black, and white cloudlike forms. They are stunningly beautiful abstractions that operate both as individual works and as a united series. Their limited palette contrasts with a Baroque depth of space. Indeed, the contrasts between life and death, black and white, soft and hard, and near and far all connect directly with the overarching theme of the exhibition.

Other paintings in the exhibition come from various series, including one entitled Dharma, a Sanskrit term that refers to the ideas of duty and law as they pertain to the constructs of society and religion. These works demonstrate a more architectonic structure and display a very different surface and application of paint, one that incorporates automatic drawing. Emanating out of a European Surrealist tradition, this technique provides a way of working that includes chance elements. The overarching architectonic structure of the work contrasts with the organic automatism to produce a work that is both elegant and complex. Another group of small paintings, entitled Drishti, also incorporates automatic drawing, now with an intense red color. Drishti is Sanskrit for vision or insight. In these small forceful works, Puri brings together east and west, resulting in images that both explore and contrast form and content through an abstract style.