Alexander Puz
Alexander Puz - Painter, based in New York City
Artist Statement
My canvases are not faces, landscapes or bodies, I work with the actualities of painting. I be- lieve abstract art is emancipatory and unifying through its focus on objectivity. Color, line, form, texture and value are the distinct, concrete elements that I configure into novel painted situations. By isolating the character of each of these elements, they may operate on their own terms as much as possible. These elemental marks align on a square grid, to produce a series of hard-edge tonal abstractions. Each paint- ing begins with a composition drawing mapped out on graph paper. I seek to maximize occupied space while honoring a strict ruleset that determines the behavior of each component. Once the negative of the painting is set, I am able to make the intuitive choices of scale, color and progression. At times, a second inset grid appears.
Blue prints, screen resolution tests and toy labyrinths are spiritual relatives of my paintings. Each piece is a diagram and a record, a prescription and a description; in essence: You need this, you are this. These models of experience are operating on two levels as image and program both looked at and inside of. It is in this way my work can function apart from the cultural melee, content to continue or combust on its own abstract terms. When the elements of line, color, value, texture and form coalesce, a system of latent tendencies become manifest and the underlying organizational principle becomes clear: compro- mise is composure.
Territory - linocut | 10" x 10" (25x25cm)
Reterritorialization - oil painting | 30" x 30" (75x75cm)
CV- Alexander Puz
2014 BFA City University of New York, Hunter
Solo Shows
2017 Silks Building, Void Set Beach Studio Show, Long Island City, NY
Group Shows
2017 Marquee Gallery, LMP Neue Art Pop-Up Show, New London, CT
Image Gallery, We Have Forgotten the Physical, Brooklyn, NY Plaxall Gallery, Spring Members Showcase, Long Island City, NY 109 Norfolk St, WBAI Benefit Auction, New York, NY
2016 Space 776, BOS Salon Show, Bushwick, NY
SAAC Juried Art Competition, El Dorado, AR
Rochester Museum of Contemporary Art, 6X6X2016, Rochester, NY The Greenpoint Gallery, Annual Salon Show, New York, NY
The Shirt Factory Gallery, Small Works Show 2016, Glen Falls, NY
2015 Catalyst Gallery, Small Works Show, Beacon, NY
TvH Projects, Bathroom Myths, Online Exhibition
Goodbye Blue Monday, “Grandma” Performance, New York, NY MoMA P.S.1, Bob & Robert Smith: Art Amnesty, New York, NY
2014 Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Gallery, “Spring Thesis”, New York, NY 205 Hudson, Hunter College Open Studios, New York, NY
2013 AHAH 15th Floor Gallery, “Art Historians at Hunter Pop Up Show”, NY, NY 2010 Hunter College “Undergraduate Sculpture Show”, New York, NY
Publications and Print
2017 Hyperallergic “A View from the Easel”
Lunch Money Print, Print Edition of 20, New London, CT
2016 No Pop Gallery, Pants Destroyer Session I, New Haven, CT
2015 Starry Night Artists to Look Out For Catalog, Starry Night Programs 2014 BFA Spring Thesis Catalogue, Leubsdorf Gallery
2010 Olive Tree Review Spring, Selection of Paintings
2009 Olive Tree Review Fall, Selection of illustrations