Antonio Puri

Born in 1966 in Chandigarh (India)
Lives and works in Bogota (Colombia)

Antonio Puri was raised in the Himalayas and attended the Academy of Art in San Francisco and Coe College in Iowa for a Bachelor’s in Art and later a JD degree from the University of Iowa. He has had solo exhibitions at Government Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh, India; artdepot, Innsbruck, Austria; The Guild Art Gallery, New York; The Loft, Mumbai, India; Nu Art Gallery, Santa Fe; Twelve Gates, Philadelphia; Philadelphia Art Alliance; and a two person show at the Noyes Museum, NJ, USA. He has also participated in numerous group exhibitions. Puri’s expression of the self continuously evolves in an effort to challenge perceptions and deconstruct identifying labels used by others. He is particularly interested in the connections between his Eastern roots and his Western experiences. He embraces the possibility that we can exist in a world free from labels.

Attaching Detaching, Puri’s submission for KB17, comprises of photographs centered upon the insistent gesture of tying the body and face. With this, the artist reflects on the ideological ties that arise due to cultural schemes that relegate us to an existence loaded with paradigms that distort our communion with life and others. In the work, the body becomes a territory invaded by suppositions. In this context, the act of tying emphasizes that we are all prisoners of our circumstances, while the act of untying manifests as a decisive act of freedom. The work alludes to the multiple and often violent ties of the mind and the flesh and our desire to be free of them.