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More history in the making
By R.B. Strauss
October 24, 2002
One of the more dynamic and historically astute exhibitions of this new art season is "Pollock to Puri: Five Decades Later," featuring paintings by Antonio Puri at the DaVinci Art Alliance 704 Catherine Street, in Philadelphia through October 31.
Gallery hours are every Wednesday of the month, from 6 to 8 p.m. and every Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m. You can also make an appointment to see the work besides regular hours by calling (215) 829-0466--and you would do well to make the call.
Puri
takes the basic
"drip"
technique of Pollock
and binds it to a
process that yields
more cosmic results,
inasmuch as a circle
is the centerpiece
of every one of the
pieces in the
exhibition, each one
suggesting distant
planets yet to be
discovered. Many of
the paintings are
mixed media, and
also utilize wax.
However, these are
not encaustic works,
as the artist
scrapes away the wax
to leave far
different results.
"Dharma
I," first of a
series, is a
roughhewn work
filled with kinetic
movement bound up in
subtle ease. The
composition plays
out over four
circles in a
vertical row, and
there is something
here of a scroll, a
star chart of the
soul. From top to
bottom, each one
seems to be the
phases of a world,
something seen
through a telescope
over the course of
eons' worth of ages.
The Pollock
reference is in the
"drips"
Puri offers, and
they are more like
cascading streams of
gas or liquid, a
cosmological
ectoplasm against
the background of
beige strengthened
with, of all things,
coffee for added
texture.
As for the sense of
a convex reality,
this is arrives in
the pull of lines
against thicker
fields of paler
blue, which serves
as something that
affects one's
perception of the
piece in a purely
optical regard.
The
interrelationship
between these
paintings is an
exquisite dance that
goes far beyond the
general parameters
of old School
Abstract
Expressionism in
general and Jackson
Pollock in
particular to form a
postmodern aesthetic
grounded in how
singular vision
yields fresh truth.
R.
B. Strauss is a
Philadelphia based
art critic who
writes regularly for
the Philadelphia
Inquirer, Art
Matters,
Philadelphia Style
Magazine and other
local newspapers and
magazines.